


Dust

by Osomatsu



Series: Marveltale [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, F/M, Female Chara (Undertale), Female Frisk (Undertale), Gen, If you don't want to see a flower and skeleton being cute dorks, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Slow Burn, Turn back now before it's too late
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-08-26 03:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16673659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osomatsu/pseuds/Osomatsu
Summary: Part 1 of the Marveltale AU, post true pacifist, post Infinity War. The monster populace has been living outside of New York peacefully for a little while, but when a snap turns half the world to dust, including Frisk, Papyrus, Toriel, and a number of others, the only hope for them to be saved is for Sans, Flowey, and Alphys to team up with some unlikely allies...the Avengers.





	1. Another Place, Another Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I feel good I play under warm distress  
> Pass it up on a better day  
> Well you got whatcha want you never knew  
> Perfect gift from me to you
> 
> Got shackles on my wings on tight  
> Beggin' makin' compromise  
> Fast enough it's hard to hide  
> Sometimes I want to disappear...
> 
> \- 'Houdini', Foster the People

The world had become a different place. If that weren’t obvious from the moment that they’d seen the sun, it had not too long after. First, they weren’t even the strangest things that the world had to offer. Far from it. Humans had practically gone towards the strange being the normal - which was actually great, honestly. That made them fitting in far easier. When you have a group of several people that could literally identify themselves as superheroes that are supposed to protect the world, monsters are nothing. Of course, it’d involved a little bit of legislation when they’d turned up, but as far as the government was concerned, as long as they weren’t causing a problem, they wouldn’t sic their pet ‘heroes’ on them.

 

Not that Undyne didn’t beg for that to happen anyway. And Papyrus, come to think of it. They both thought that meeting them would be cool.

 

Sans, for his part, had tried to take all of this in stride. Nothing was getting hurt by it. These humans were helping, strange as their help was. Magical powers that could only be described as ‘stranger than fiction’....one of them was even apparently a God of some kind, which he had to question if that made more than a few humans have a crisis of faith. Did this sort of confirm the afterlife was Valhalla? Things to ponder later, he noted. It wasn’t like it could directly impact them, apart from the humans being cautious...especially around Mettaton, weirdly enough.

 

Apparently ‘robots with nice voices’ were a thing to be cautious around on the surface. Or so he’d heard. 

 

At any rate, they’d been given a plot of land due to some convincing words on the kid’s part - or, well, maybe they just felt bad about trying to turn away a young lady who looked as roughed up as she was. It was almost funny. She’d originally paused at the door when they were making their way into the office, and snickered. He’d looked over at her, one eyelight widening to replace the motion of raising a brow. 

 

“what’s so funny?” The question got Frisk to snicker even further, making a ‘shhh’ motion with her hands. As she threw open the door, she immediately stumbled in, wiping dirt dramatically off of her face, looking at the officials with tear-filled eyes.

 

“I’m so sorry...I--” She coughed. “It’s a long way to walk from the Underground to here, and I haven’t been able to rest until I’ve made sure my family is safe…” She winced, rubbing at a bruise that she seemed not to mind before. “...Please. If I can ask you for one thing, be nice to them.”

 

Mettaton took full credit for this splendid display of acting, of course. But Frisk had walked out of there, looking relieved...before smiling all too happily once there was a door between her and the officials she’d fed the sob story to. “That wasn’t too hard.”

 

“you don’t feel bad about that?” Sans asked, and Frisk let out a small sigh.

 

“About lying? I mean, yeah. A little. But I’m doing it for the good of my family, so I can’t get too wound up about it. Besides. The biggest lie I told was that I hadn’t eaten in days. And technically, I haven’t. Monster food doesn’t count~” She hummed in a singsong voice. “If it did, it’d taste filling.”

 

“loopholes. niiiiice.” Sans snorted. “that’s not what we taught you, kid.” 

 

“You are five years older than me.” Frisk stated, shrugging lightly. “And if this bites me in the ass, I’ll take care of it. I’m the ambassador. It’s my responsibility.” She took it in stride. Always seemed to. Which was admirable, for someone who’d gone through so much. Sans would always admit silently to himself that that was the thing he envied most about Frisk: she could remain happy and bright and optimistic at the worst of times. There was always a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a bright spotlight that she had to share.

 

In Sans’s perspective, the light was far more like a discount string of Christmas lights that he’d aimlessly picked up at a dollar store for cheap and it turned out that they only worked if you put something heavy on the cord at exactly the right spot. So...pretty pathetic, overall. 

 

Not that what had happened next with the world had helped.

 

Humans were already uneasy with them living amongst them. There were occasional disaster threats, sure, and it wasn’t a cakewalk to live where they did - which, inconveniently, was close enough to New York to make this an issue - but there was nothing so much as the threat that they’d seen on the television before it happened. 

 

He remembers it pretty well, honestly. He’d been scrolling through the list of television channels, hoping to find something worthwhile that wasn’t some kind of stand-up special that he’d seen already. The fact that a Dane Cook special was the only thing he could find was upsetting all by itself, but then the TV had changed itself. There was a warning on the screen.

 

Papyrus had walked out from the kitchen, and had looked at it with the same stunned expression Sans had. “...WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, SANS?” He asked, looking at the screen, and then at his older brother. Sans looked at the TV for a few more seconds, and shrugged.

 

“it’s...probably a tornado or something, pap. these things happen.” He replied, before the television itself began to play a message.

 

“This is a National Security Alert. Citizens, please remain calm and stay inside your homes until further notice. There is a Code Red crisis, and the appropriate action has been taken...do not panic. Repeat. Do not panic, and stay tuned for future updates. This is a National Security Alert…” 

 

“...” Sans shut the TV off, and pulled out his phone, navigating to the default news site it displayed as a home page. The reason for the warning was immediately apparent, and someone had gotten photos of the entire thing. Some kind of alien beings had appeared in New York, and apparently they were strong enough for this to get to a Code Red for the entire nation. “it’s nothing. like i said.”

 

“IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE NOTHING, BROTHER.” Papyrus replied, clearly knowing that his brother had chosen to omit details as to what was happening to him. “WHAT IS GOING ON?” He asked again, looking intently at his older brother.

 

“it’s--something. the avengers are on it.” Well, at least that was mostly the truth. It looked like those ‘heroes’ were on the job, but it also looked like the fight for them was anything but pleasant. “it’ll probably be handled in no time.” 

 

Papyrus thought this over, and then nodded. “THE AVENGERS ARE DEFINITELY CAPABLE OF SOLVING THIS PROBLEM! AND, PERHAPS, SOON ENOUGH, IF THEY NEED ME, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL AID THEM IN THEIR TIME OF NEED!  NYEH HEH HEH!” He declared dramatically, and it almost made Sans snicker a little. “AND IF I’M LUCKY, IRON MAN MAY EVEN CALL ME...A COOL DUDE.” If Frisk saw the spotlight at the end of the tunnel, and Sans saw the flickering Christmas lights...there was no light at the end of Papyrus’s tunnel, because the entire thing was lit up. “I MEAN. I’D PREFER CAPTAIN AMERICA, BUT ISN’T HE ILLEGAL NOW?”

 

“yeah. didn’t sign some kind of accords in sokovia.” Not that he understood that much. It seemed to be humans just having a big bout over who got to have the high horse over their magic, and the truth was that no one deserved that but themselves. At least, in Sans’s opinion. If King Asgore came into his home and started dictating that he could only use his magic when and where, there’d be more than a few problems that everyone would have with that. Though the government had briefly pondered on having the monsters dictated to some kind of similar legislation, they hadn’t acted on anything yet. Maybe this was why.

 

“WELL...MAYBE HE DID THE RIGHT THING ANYWAY. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.” Papyrus mumbled, trying to think of some kind of justification. “AT LEAST WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE...WAIT, DO WE EVEN KNOW WHERE THOR IS?”

 

“space. apparently.”

 

“WHY IS HE IN SPACE???”

 

“he went home.’

 

“.....I WANT TO GO HOME WITH THOR.” This sentence was said with such conviction that Sans was 90% sure that Papyrus wasn’t joking, but it didn’t stop him from chuckling anyway.

“you and quite a few other people, pap.” Oh, no, he only made it more difficult for himself.

 

“WHAT? WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?” Papyrua asked, almost forming his mouth down into a frown. “WHAT IS FUNNY NOW?”

 

“i was just thinking...if you like that guy so much, does that mean you aThore him?” Sans’s grin practically grew across his entire face. Papyrus stared for a few seconds, before he started laughing, and trying to blatantly hide it. “you’re laughing!! you’re laughing!”

 

“I AM NOT! THAT WAS AWFUL!” Papyrus protested, covering his laughter up with coughs.  Sans gave him a wry look, and yet all the same said nothing, simply offering a shrug. Of course, his brother was more liable to change the subject at this point than suffer any more of his puns. Which he did. “...WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED DOING TODAY? I FORGET. AND DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE TOO LAZY TO REMEMBER. THAT’S A LIE.”

 

Sans looked at his phone again, and there was still--nothing. No update saying that things were fine now. No promises that it would be. Just a lot of nothing. Which, usually, would be fine by him. But today was a different story altogether. “i...uh. let me check.” He pulled up the scheduling application on his phone, scrolling down. “i had a shift at work at 1…” The skeleton glanced at the clock. 12:30. It wasn’t like they’d keep the store open during this. It wasn’t a big deal.

 

“AT WHICH WORK?” Papyrus asked. The question stung, just a little, even if it was unintentional. It had been no secret that after getting to the surface, Sans had to occupy his mind somehow. He had so many timelines and bad possibilities etched across it that it felt impossible to allow himself a moment of silence, and if he ever did, he started fearing for himself. Started fearing for Papyrus, started fearing for...everyone. That was why he took so many shifts at so many noisy places. That was why he was so overworked, despite claiming he was ‘completely lazy.’ 

 

“just a burger place. it’s fine. they were just having me take care of stock and clean up when things were slow, anyway.” Sans brushed it off, though the thought stuck in his mind far more than Papyrus likely intended it to. “what were you going to do while i was at work?” He asked, looking up at his brother and sitting up straight on the couch. 

 

His worst fear, honestly, was that Papyrus would say the thing that would completely break his heart at some point, which, knowing his little brother, was likely the truth in some form or fashion: I WAIT FOR YOU TO GET HOME.

 

But instead, the taller of the two skelebros offered a shrug much like his brother. “PROBABLY GO SEE WHAT UNDYNE WAS UP TO. AND ALPHYS. ...OH, RIGHT! ALPHYS TOLD ME TO TELL YOU TO RETURN HER BOX SET OF EV...EVALION? EVANLION.”

 

“evangelion.” Sans corrected, snorting lightly. “next time you see her, tell her i’m going to when i’m done. it’s a long watch. she knows that.” He got up, Papyrus almost pouting.

 

“AND YOU WON’T LET ME WATCH WHY?”

 

“it’s dark, pap.” Sans sighed. “you wouldn’t like it.”

 

“I’M NOT A BABY BONES, SANS.”

 

“i know you’re not. but i also know what you do and don’t like, and trust me, you wouldn’t like that. it’s dark and it’s sad and it’s interesting, but it’s not a good time.” It was at that point that Papyrus said something that truly caught him off-guard.

 

“ARE YOU SURE THAT’S THE BEST THING FOR YOU TO BE WATCHING?” It was a quieter tone of voice than normal, not that many people could tell. Papyrus always had a habit of being loud, but after being around him for years and years, Sans could tell his emotions from inflexion, from tone, and even if the volume never decreased unless he was in a particularly bad mood, he could certainly tell concern. 

 

And Papyrus didn’t admit that he was concerned about Sans often - not half as often as Sans concerned himself with him outright, but that was because they had a dynamic. They had something that didn’t need to be upset: Papyrus was the one who needed to be protected, not the protector. He was the younger one, the innocent one, the one that had delusions of grandeur. Sometimes, Sans wondered how much of that was an act that his little brother put forth simply because he knew he liked to play around with it and that it kept his older brother from worrying. This was one of those moments. Deep down, they both knew it. Whereas Sans was the strongest of the two magically, Papyrus had him beat emotionally. There was an unhealthy coping method, and a healthy one, and at least Papyrus was handling the reactions of the humans, the troubles of the surface world, everything...he was handling it in a way that didn’t hurt himself. Or everyone else.

 

Sans, however? Sans had no idea where to even start with that, and sometimes he feared it was a lost cause altogether. And in the silence of the fact that they had no guarantee on what was going on, if it would be handled or not, Sans…

 

“i’m fine, pap. it’s just a show, anyway.”

 

He brushed it off again. Papyrus hesitated for a split-second, but let the conversation die as a knock sounded out from the front door. He spun around, and opened the door. Standing at the front door was Frisk, holding a flower pot that, of course, held Flowey inside. Flowey was no doubt a sore subject in Sans’s mind, for fairly obvious reasons, but Frisk had demanded to take him along with them about a week after they’d left. Apparently the flower had made a huge show over not wanting to leave the empty Underground, acting like it was some sort of punishment for all his sins and doing that would just make up for everything, but leaving things like that made him a pariah for the entire monster kingdom. Frisk didn’t want that. So there he was, as sour and sardonic as everyone would expect, acting as Frisk’s pet houseplant and companion. 

 

“FLOWEY!” Papyrus, unsurprisingly, was one of the people trying to reach out to Flowey. He’d claimed that he was his best friend before, he’d been the founder of the Flowey Fan Club...and to his credit, Flowey seemed far less cruel towards him than he did anyone else, minus Frisk. Frisk and Papyrus were the two able to break through to him. “AND THE HUMAN! ….WHY AREN’T YOU TWO INDOORS??? THERE’S AN ALERT GOING ON!” 

 

“It’s my responsibility to make sure that all the monsters are inside before I get inside myself.” Frisk’s response was immediate. The human had taken the title of monster ambassador very seriously in regards to taking care of the people, and so much as no one would tell Asgore to his face, Frisk was acting as a far more responsible ruler in a month than he’d been for a long while. (Not that he didn’t know that already. The reason why no one would tell him is that the poor guy had taken far too many kicks already while he was down.) “So I’m going around checking! Flowey wanted to come with me. Make sure I was safe. Right, Flow?”

 

“You’re pushing it.” Flowey huffed with mild annoyance, waving a leaf. “I wanted to get out of the house. The last thing I needed to hear in the middle of whatever fantastical bullshittery is happening this week is Toriel’s incessant worrying. Plus, I had to make sure that this one didn’t decide to just go check on everyone in town while she was at it.” He shook his head. “We just finished our checklist by stopping here. Mind if we stay here until this blows over?”

 

“OF COURSE NOT!” Papyrus chirped, clear excitement in his tone that Flowey had even asked to spend time with another sentient being. “COME ON IN!”

 

“Thank you.” Frisk grinned down at Flowey, as the flower looked back at her with a deadpan expression, only shifting a bit to see the other skeleton in the room as a sarcastic, malicious smile formed on his face.

 

“Sans.” Flowey greeted, and the smaller skeleton barely resisted from rolling his eyelights in a motion of ‘here we go again.’ “How are you holding up during this panic? I mean. It’s not just me that realizes these things really…”

 

“get under my metaphorical skin?” Sans cut him off, winking, which only made the flower pause for a few seconds, and almost curse himself for setting that one up. “i’m fine. how’re you both?”

 

Frisk, who’d been a little silent, spoke up. “I won’t lie. It’s...worrying. Usually we get some kind of reassurance by now, but today there’s been nothing. Not since this morning. The TV stations are down with the emergency message, the internet is mostly quiet apart from people worrying about what is going on, and it’s just...it’s like we’re waiting for a shoe to drop.” She shook her head. “I’m trying to be optimistic about this, but it’s hard.” 

 

“eh. we’ve faced worse.” Sans tried to make the weight that’d suddenly dropped into the room lift up a little, but it was clear that even he didn’t believe his own words. “so everyone else is fine?”

 

“Mhm.” Frisk nodded. “Every monster is safe in their homes.” She froze, biting her tongue a little. “...Well, except for Jerry, but he’s getting a phone charger in the city and he’ll probably be back soon.”

 

“Not that anyone cares.” Flowey tacked on. “He could die and Frisk wouldn’t even bat an eyelash.”

 

“I would!” Frisk protested, setting the plant down onto a table.

 

“Don’t try to take the moral high ground with this, Frisk, you hesitated when we tried to go to his house.” 

 

“That was because he doesn’t even have a house! He mooches off of other people!” 

 

“See? You don’t care.” Flowey held his face in one leaf, acting as a hand. “Poor Jerry. Everyone hates him, even the person who doesn’t hate anyone. For good reason. Why don’t we just let him die in the middle of this? I’m curious to see whether a funeral would be held, or if we’d just toss his dust into a dumpster and call it a day. Certainly there’s no eulogy worth having.” 

 

“do you have to constantly talk about death to feel fulfilled?” Sans asked, opening up the fridge and taking out a bottle of ketchup.  “because that’s what you seem to always do. don’t you have hobbies?”

 

“Do you have to constantly use the most inane version of humor possible to cover up your constant existential crisis, Trashbag?”

 

“oh. wow. you swallowed a dictionary! maybe you do have hobbies!” 

 

“Better than swallowing a--”

 

“Knock it off!” Frisk interrupted, glaring at the both of them. “We’re in the middle of an emergency situation, we don’t need you two trying to kill each other too. Flowey, be nice. Sans, you too.” 

 

“yeah, yeah, kid.” Sans hummed, taking a swig of his ketchup bottle. “he started it.” 

 

“Oh, bullshit! I was picking on Jerry, and then you got involved!” Flowey snarled, lurching forward in a motion that made his pot wobble a little bit. Frisk gave him a look as she sat down on the couch, letting out a small huff of her own. 

 

“Well, I don't care who started it. I’m finishing it.” She flatly replied. “Papyrus, how’s your training going?” She asked with a smile, looking at Papyrus. Papyrus, who’d merely been seeming to think a few things over quietly, immediately burst into a wide grin.

 

“UNDYNE MUST HAVE TOLD YOU! IT’S GOING FANTASTIC! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM LEARNING SO MUCH! IT’S A WONDER WE FOUND ALL THOSE OLD TRAINING VIDEOS OF CAPTAIN AMERICA ONLINE! HIS FITNESS CHALLENGE HAS NO DOUBT BEEN RIGOROUS, BUT I AM WILLING TO STAND TO IT! NYEH HEH HEH!” What had actually been found was old mandatory gym lesson videos for human school, shot in the days when VHS was a very viable format - and likely just because it was something the government wanted their star-spangled hero to do to ‘inspire the youth.’ No one had the spite in them to inform the two former guard captain and guard in training that this was the case, however, and so they took these entirely 100% seriously. 

 

Not that Flowey didn’t find hilarity in the fact that the hero they were aspiring after was a disgrace to the nation these days. He did. Very much so. But at least he had the mercy to spare them from that whole rant, which would likely, if he ever said it out loud, go down in infamy as ‘that one time that Flowey destroyed all the magic of superheroes in one fatal blow.’  

 

“I’m glad everything’s going well.” Frisk’s tone was just as cheerful as ever, despite the circumstances. “Sans, how about you? Work going okay?”

 

“uhhhh. apart from me missing a shift today, yeah. probably not a big deal, though. i’m gonna text my boss later, see if we could work in another time for that.” That was clearly not the answer that Papyrus - or Frisk for that matter - likely wanted to hear, but it was the truthful one. He was spending this time with thoughts bouncing around in his mind. It had to be pushed away violently later. “otherwise, i think i’m working my way to a raise. still not exactly in a position where people want to see my face, but…”

 

Flowey looked directly at him as if to ask ‘people have ever wanted to see your face?’ 

 

“...but i think we’ll get there. someday.” 

 

“That’s the spirit. Keep at it.” Frisk was supportive, despite her other thoughts on the matter. That was something to admire about the girl - she always was. For better or for worse. But the thought she mentioned earlier still lurked around in Sans’s mind. When would the shoe drop?

 

He found that out a mere few seconds later. She’d tried to pick up the remote, turn the TV on, check the news...and it slipped through her fingers. “Whoops. Jeez, it’s…” She paused, looking at her hand. “....” This abrupt silence alerted the other three to the human girl, and she was staring at her hand with a look of fear in her eyes. 

 

“...kid?” Sans asked, and Frisk held up her hand, shaking it, and the three monsters watched...as dust began to fall from it. His voice caught in his throat, and he began to walk backwards, his magic instinctively flaring up and his mind pulling up images of that human, the smiling human, the one covered in dust, but this was different.

 

Frisk’s arm was dissolving into dust right in front of his eyes. The girl looked at her arm, then at Sans, then at the others, looking for some sort of explanation, but the only voice to come out, and even that sounded shaky, was Flowey’s.

 

“That’s….that’s not normal for humans, is it?”

 

And that was when it happened. Papyrus looked down at his own leg. And he laughed.

 

Sans knew immediately what that meant. It wasn’t a triumphant laugh like normal. It wasn’t something happy. It was a laugh that showed that it only got worse if he looked at him, and that no matter what, whatever this was, Sans was going to be in a state that locked him down for a good while. Flowey looked at Papyrus, and the flower immediately tensed. 

 

Both of them were dissolving into dust. Sans was quiet, staring in horror at the scene, trying to think if there was something - anything - to stop it, but there was nothing, especially not when he didn’t have an idea for how it even got started in the first place. Flowey seemed to be in that same state of helplessness, looking at his own leaves as if he expected them to be dissolving into dust, but there was nothing. He was fine. He looked at Sans, and...Sans was fine.

 

He looked back at Frisk and Papyrus.

 

All he saw were piles of dust.

 

And all he heard was a scream behind him. Not one of terror. Not one of nerves. Not one that was even angry. Just a noise. A noise that proved that Sans was alive. He breathed in, then breathed out. 

 

If this dust phenomena was happening to everyone...it figured that one of the ones spared would be him. With that thought alone, he couldn’t even scream. So he sat there, and he stared.

 

He’d never felt anything when seeing monsters get dusted before. But a human...that was different. She was there, and then she wasn’t, her skin turning to grains, her blood nowhere to be found. No body. No SOUL. Just dust. Dust, and the memory that something that mattered was taken away from the world.

 

Whatever this was, that had to be remedied. And he’d make sure it would be.  


	2. What Do You Do When The World Breaks?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you've gotten what you want  
> Maybe I should start over  
> There's nothing left to want  
> Up and at 'em again  
> You don't know what you want  
> Yeah, I'm thinking it over  
> Just tell me what to want  
> \- 'It's A Trip!', Joywave

It’s sometimes the most unexpected people that can bring you back from the brink. That’s a lesson of life. Even if you hate someone, even if you will never truly care about them, even if you’ve killed each other before...if there’s no choice, they’ll bring you back.

 

“Sans. SANS!” 

 

A  sharp voice shook him out of his screaming, and a vine tugged his body over, before he hit his skull gently with one leaf. “Snap out of it. I can’t take your screaming in the middle of this. We need to focus, anyway. I need you to check the news. See if this is common. If it isn’t, it’s likely something to do near here. If it is, then we have a much larger problem on our hands. Do you understand me?”

 

“don’t you find this funny or something?” Sans asked, some sort of defensive wall popping up around his emotions, as Flowey had expected the minute he tried to snap him out of his little fit. The flower was silent for a few seconds, and then spoke once more.

 

“No, actually. I don’t. I don’t have a SOUL. I don’t have all my emotions in the right place, but Frisk was someone important to the world. If we can’t agree on anything else, we can agree on that. And if she’s dust, then the world has lost something important, and we can’t let that be the case. We were spared and she wasn’t. We need to right that wrong.” Flowey’s voice didn’t seem to have even the slightest hint of what he said being some kind of malicious joke. “Now do what I said and check the news. The more we fidget on little details, the more time Frisk spends as a vacuum’s lunch.”

 

As much as Sans would loathe to admit it in any other situation, Flowey was right. So he pulled out his phone, and pulled up a news site, moving over so the flower could read the words on the page. “...Half of the world, gone.” The flower said the words like he himself didn’t believe reality. “Half of the world’s population and half of the world’s resources.” He was quiet, as he went on to read. “Thanos. What a name.” Flowey leaned back, and looked at Sans. “Okay. Do you want the good news or the bad news?” 

 

“...bad?”

 

“Half of the world is gone. People, resources, everything. They’re all gone thanks to this one guy and his powerful magic. All thanks to one finger snap. Frisk and Papyrus are far from the only casualties. The famous ones...they’re still gathering information, but apparently the king of Wakanda is amongst them. Shame. His little sister is apparently doing her best to assume the throne, and she’s….she’s about Frisk’s age. Jeez.” 

 

“so what’s the good news?”

 

“Tony Stark is travelling back to New York for a press conference. And we’re going to meet him.” Flowey stated, resolution in his voice. “Apparently Frisk was scheduled to be at that conference to help benefit the world further in peace. We’re going to have to take her place.”

 

Sans looked at Flowey quizzically, and the flower let out an annoyed sigh. “Look. We don’t know if Asgore and Toriel are alive or not. And quite frankly, I don’t want to be the one to look either in the eye and tell them that they lost another kid.” That last part had far more intent behind it than what most would expect normally from Flowey, but Sans knew what he was talking about. Frisk hadn’t been one to spread the news around, or even share it privately with some, but Sans was particularly good at deducing things. 

 

The way Flowey responded to Toriel at times, the way he tended to most violently push both her and Asgore away - it had meaning behind it. That had very few explanations, but Sans had taken it all to mean that Flowey was far more connected to them than he liked to share, and Flowey had assumed at this point that Sans knew good and well who he was. “So we’ll go into the city, and we’ll talk to Stark. Then we’ll see how he takes the news that Frisk is gone, and we’ll help him.”

 

“...with what?” 

 

Flowey looked at Sans in a deadpan way, before explaining his full intentions. “Look, Smiley Trashbag. We both have loads of secrets, right? Yours is that behind that ‘not giving a shit’ facade, you give way too much of a shit in all actuality, and you’re smarter than you like to let on. That’s what makes you so paranoid all of the time, because you know things no one else does. If you’re going to waste that talent even in the face of Frisk being a pile of dust, that’s disgusting. That would make you worse than even me. Don’t think I didn’t know that you had that little secret lab of yours. You’re smart. Maybe even just as smart as that human. So I’m demanding on Frisk’s behalf that you let him know that, and you get us into solving this with him. He’ll need all the help he can get. If he turns us away, we follow anyway. We stay determined. Does that register to you?” That was fairly clear-cut. Sans shook his head.

 

“fine. but we need to check who else is alive in the monster kingdom first. even if we don’t take them with us, we need to know. frisk would want to know.”

 

“Fine. But don’t blame me for how Toriel or Asgore might react. Pick me up and let’s go.” Sans almost picked up Flowey’s flower pot, before the flower rolled his eyes and extended a vine, wrapping himself around Sans’s right arm. “We don’t need the dead weight of the dumb pot. We’re fine like this. Just don’t rip me off.” 

 

“aww. but i wanted to put you in a baby carrier.” The skeleton teased, chuckling as he began to head for the door. The flower groaned.

 

“Even now, you’re making the dumbest jokes possible.”

 

“look, flow, cryin’ in the face of the end of the world is one thing. laughin’ at it makes ya have the upper hand out of sheer spite.” Sans explained, pulling the door open, then stepping out, shutting it behind him and locking it. 

 

“Where’d you learn that one?”

 

“mmm. mix of all throughout life. you helped me learn that, really. sure pisses you off.” The flower snorted softly at Sans’s response, almost seeming to agree with the statement, but was cut off by the scene before him. All around the area, monsters were stumbling out of their houses, their eyes wide and their throats dry. Their composure was ruined, and some had tears in their eyes. It was like something just...broke. Sans had seen the reactions before, but this time it was far more amplified. The surface world wasn’t perfect, but people had hope that they hadn’t had before on it.

 

This time, however? That hope was all sapped away. Again. 

 

“Sans…” Alphys was the first to stumble over. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide. “You’re--You’re okay.” She mumbled, seemingly in a daze. Flowey and Sans exchanged a glance, knowing that this could only mean one or two things - and in the worst case, possibly both. 

 

“yeah. i’m fine, alph.” Sans extended an arm, and Alphys held onto it as if to steady herself. “you’re okay, too.” It was something that seemed like stating an obvious fact, but it had more meaning behind it than just simply her being alive. It was reassurance. But she shook her head, looking at Flowey, then at Sans again. 

 

“Undyne...Mettaton...they’re--they’re…” Alphys trailed off. Sans winced. This meant only one thing: both of them were gone. Her partner, and one of her best friends. And Alphys wasn’t one to take loss easily. “...It should have been me.” Almost immediately after the words escaped her mouth, she regretted it. “No. Undyne wouldn’t want me to say that, she wouldn’t...it’s true, but she wouldn’t…”

 

“alphys. alphys.” Sans gently squeezed her arm. “i need you to stay with me, okay? breathe. you’re fine. you’re here.” He glanced at Flowey, who for once, looked a little helpless. He wasn’t used to helping comfort anyone, and it showed. The flower was perfectly capable of tough love, but gentle was another area altogether. So he shifted, looking away from the scene. 

 

“Where’s Papyrus?” Alphys asked, meekly adjusting her glasses. The question struck Sans in a way he wasn’t prepared to take yet, and his eyelights drifted to the ground. Immediately, Alphys was able to decipher what that meant. “Oh no. I’m--I’m so sorry.” She stuttered out. Sans shook his head, looking back up at her with a weak smile that tried to be reassuring, but only led to Flowey taking over the conversation.

“Papyrus is dust. Frisk is dust, too.” Flowey’s tone came out flat, emotionless, and it was clear that he was trying to disconnect himself from the situation. “So that makes Papyrus, Frisk, Undyne, and Mettaton gone. Alphys, Sans, and Flowey are okay. Have we heard anything from the king or queen? Or Napstablook, for that matter?” 

 

“Napstablook is the one who t-told me about Mettaton.” Alphys responded, and Flowey nodded in return. “I don’t know about the king and queen, though. I’m kind of afraid to find out…” She admitted. Flowey made a motion almost like pinching the bridge of where his forehead would be, if he had one - or a hand instead of a leaf, for that matter. 

 

“Alright. Alphys, I want you to stay with Sans and I. Sans would like the same. Being alone in this situation is just going to lead to bad thoughts all over, and we don’t want that.” Flowey’s voice took on a commanding air, seeming to try to take hold of the situation as the only one emotionally closed off enough to do so. Alphys nodded quietly, listening, and Flowey pointed forward. “We need to find out what happened to Asgore and Toriel. 

 

If they’re both dead, we’re facing a huge problem. If one is around, they can calm the populace. Tell them everything will be fine, even when it isn’t. Asgore’s been doing that for years. That’s practically his nom de plume. Toriel probably could as well, but she’s far more averse to lying just because she likes to be contrary and it gives her that feeling of ‘I’m independent, so there.’ But even she’d know in this situation what had to be done. If both are around, great. Asgore can do the lying, Toriel can do nothing as she’s been doing for years.” He spat out bitterly, and Sans and Alphys refrained from commenting.

 

“Meanwhile...Alphys. You know who Tony Stark is, right?” 

 

“Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. That’s what all the interviews call him, anyway…what about him?” 

 

“He’s having a press conference in the city. Sans and I are set to attend in Frisk’s place and inform him as to what is going on. We’d love for you to go with us. Your scientific knowledge could be key to finding a solution to this situation and bringing everyone back. We need you to help us convince Stark that we could help, and to contribute after he’s convinced that he needs our assistance.” 

 

“Are--Are you sure?” Alphys asked, nervously adjusting her glasses once more. “Maybe he can solve it on his own…”

 

“And maybe he can’t. Maybe it’ll take years. Far longer than what we’d want it to take. Do we want to leave this up to chance and risk everything, or do we want to be proactive, solve our own goddamn problems, and save everyone through hard work and determination?” Flowey was clearly getting into the spirit of acting as a leader, if nothing else. “Do we, Alphys?”

 

“Y--Yes?” 

 

“It’s not a question, Alphys. State it resolutely. Say ‘yes.’ Put yourself into it.” Flowey pressed his leaves together, firmness behind his voice. “Say it.”

 

“Y-Yes!” Alphys stuttered out, perhaps a bit louder than she’d wanted it to be. At the looks of some of the other monsters, she shrank a bit, but Flowey nodded, satisfied. 

 

“That’s more like it. Let’s go. Off to go see the royals.” Flowey patted at Sans’s arm. “Giddy up.”

 

“i’m not a horse.” Sans snorted. “but yeah, okay.” Alphys, filled with newfound spirit...almost bolted ahead. Flowey was silent for a half-second, and then burst into laughter. Sans simply followed after, looking at the flower as his laughter slowly died down. “you know, if you actually meant what you said, you’d make a pretty good life coach.”

 

“Yeah, no. I’m never doing that again.” Flowey looked into the middle distance, seeming to keep an eye out for any sign of either Toriel or Asgore. “I just didn’t want her to go and do something stupid while we were gone. I’ve seen how she’s reacted in timelines where Undyne or Mettaton dies. It’s not pretty. So I may as well cut that off at the pass and take her with us to keep an eye on her just in case. I can’t predict anything anymore, so I’m not taking chances.” He hummed lightly. “She’s not that smart, but I think Stark’s pretty easily convinced by earnest spirit, and both of us are too jaded to really pull that off. Alphys isn’t. And she could surprise me and come up with something. Who knows.”

 

The walk to find one of the royals felt longer than it actually was, but when they found one, it was less than pleasant. Asgore was already looking lost and distraught, and Flowey once more averted his eyes, but with far more emphasis this time. The king saw Sans fairly quickly, and rushed over. “Sans! Sans!” He called out, and Sans raised an arm, as if to tell him to slow his roll. Asgore paused, seeming to catch his breath, and looked helplessly at Sans for the question he wanted desperately an answer for: is Toriel okay?

 

“...i haven’t seen her.” Sans admitted. Asgore’s face immediately fell. And the realization that if Frisk were around, she would’ve been with him made the king break even further. Helplessly, he looked at Flowey, and Flowey barely looked back at him, his eyes betraying no emotion whatsoever. It was an overwhelming silence that took center stage, and all of it stemmed from a man who had lost his family not once, but twice now, something likely unimaginable to most people.

 

“we’re goin’ to try to fix this.” Sans spoke again, his voice resolute, however weak it was. “but we need your help. can you reassure everyone? just...make sure they all stay calm?” The question hung in the air for a few seconds, and then the king spoke.

 

“What do you plan to do?” Asgore asked, trying to keep his composure. He knew that his emotions at the moment were almost overwhelming, but he also knew that there had to be priorities, and the top one was that he assumed responsibility. 

 

“we’re goin’ to go in frisk’s place to a press conference and speak to the only man who we think might be able to help us.” The king raised a brow, as to ask who that was. “tony stark.” The name was at least widely recognizable, and Asgore’s face shifted from confusion to realization.

 

“Do you think he’ll listen?” Asgore asked, and Sans shrugged. 

 

“we’ll never know unless we try.” That was the most hope they had at the moment, and no one could say otherwise. They always had to cling to some kind of hope, some far away possibility that made their time worth spending, something that guided them, some future where everything was perfect and everyone was happy, but in a sense they knew it’d never be perfect. They just had to work to make it livable.

 

Which was the same line of thinking one Tony Stark was having as he returned to Earth. It had taken him a good few hours to recover from the battle, from the loss, from the grief, and that was only to the state where he was able to speak again. He was never truly recovered, that was something he lost long ago when he’d discarded it instead of the box of scraps in that cave. But this was a special case.

 

Certainly, he hadn’t known some of the people that were lost for long. But he remembered their names. Their faces. Their fear and their rage, and all of that was nothing now. And the ones he did know hurt all the more. Strange had said that they were in the endgame now, and yet the battle felt like it had only just begun. Endgame in their line of work was a bit of an impossibility: there was no beginning, there was no end, there just was, and that was that. Not that they didn’t know that, but it was still confounding to him. 

 

Then again, most of his thoughts weren’t on Strange. The kid. Peter. The kid he’d roped into this whole mess - he’d been so eager to help, so bright always, so...everything. And he knew it was going to happen. He felt it before anyone else did. That sense he’d mentioned once or twice that gave him a sharper intuition as to when danger would happen. It’d hit him hard, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. And even now, Tony was double guessing himself and his own motivations. Pepper had told him before that it wasn’t particularly healthy to think in that way, but she also admitted that she knew he had no idea how to stop. And he didn’t. He himself knew that.

 

Perhaps the worst of them all was ‘if I’d just never stepped into the life of Peter Parker, would he be alive right now, and I’d be dead?’ And that was the one that he wanted to be true. Desperately.

 

It had hurt even more to return and to learn of all the others that had been lost. Not to mention the fact that Thor’s new raccoon friend heard the explanation he’d given, and immediately wordlessly left. Thor could only barely explain that Rocket, his name was, Rocket...had lost everyone he loved entirely in one fell swoop, and immediately Tony felt worse about feeling bad for himself, and that unhealthy cycle decided to loop in upon itself. 

 

But the thing that hurt the most, the absolute most, the thing that he didn’t even want to think about was that his phone had several missed calls from Pepper, and more than one voice message. He hadn’t played the voice messages yet. He didn’t have the strength to when he knew deep down, even without asking, that she wasn’t out there. She was gone, just like the rest. No one had to tell him that, and he didn’t have to hear it. He just knew. 

 

If she’d been there, everything might’ve been okay. Even if it were the end of the world, he’d look at her, and he’d feel like there was, in fact, a universe worth saving, that there was a light in it. If anyone said that Tony Stark was nothing without the suit, they’d be wrong. He’d proven that wrong time and time again. 

 

If anyone said that Tony Stark was nothing without the belief that there was a woman there that made him believe in himself, his future...his...everything, and the only woman capable of that was Pepper Potts...they’d be right. Unquestionably so. 

 

So that was where this all stood, and the only reason why he was moving, why he was bothering to do anything were thoughts of those whom he’d lost. The fact that he couldn’t motivate himself, he couldn’t do things for himself was certainly troubling, but he had something. He had the belief that Pepper wouldn’t let him sit around moping when he was one of the few people who could have even a sliver of a chance at making things right, the knowledge that the kid wouldn’t ever think that he’d crumble into nothing because he was his mentor, he was someone he looked up to and that was the biggest mistake of that boy’s life, looking up to him--.

 

He had to breathe.

 

So that chain had all led to him going to New York. There were speeches to be made, reassuring ones that he himself didn’t even really believe in, but the people needed to hear that things would be okay, even if it was a lie. It made things hurt less. It made them think that the heroes were out there saving things, there was an Iron Man out there stable as his name sounded pushing through everything like the icon he was. It was the man claiming the mask was worth believing in. Even if it was all a show...the show had to go on.

 

The guests alongside him were representatives from various places. All of them had been cherry-picked to keep people on the up and up, of course, and he’d looked over the list more than once. The names didn’t mean much to him. They’d all helped various people, various divisions, the only one he’d found himself mildly unfamiliar with was the ‘Monster Ambassador’ listed. But the internet had all kinds of research sources, and apparently the young woman listed, Frisk Dreemurr, had found a civilization of non-humans beneath the Earth, gotten them to accept peace without hurting a single one of them, and had led them onto the surface to lead better lives. It was the sort of feel-good story that in a better world would probably exist more. Tony had the slightest bit of inclination to think that the story had more to it than just that, but the gist of it was that she knew how to regulate peace. She was good at making people feel good, she’d lived an inspirational story, they needed that kind of hope right now.

 

If it panned out, of course. That was another thing. The list had been compiled pretty early into the war that this had become, and originally it was less ‘everything will be alright’, and more ‘everything is alright’, because apparently when he’d cooked up that list he’d summoned up a fresh can of optimism and that hadn’t lasted for too long. He had to hope. 

 

He stepped off the plane, and it still took more than a little bit of effort to even try to make it home. He hadn’t succeeded, but he never expected to, and he’d already booked a hotel for the next few nights. The plan was to only be in New York for a short time, anyway. Wakanda was where everyone was trying to regroup, rethink their plans, reassemble a plan for anything at all, and he wanted to get back as soon as possible so he could buckle down and focus on something to take his mind off of his real problems.

 

The journey towards the city hall had been something he was only partway conscious for. He wouldn’t remember it, he couldn’t remember it. His memory was shaky, it was blanking out as much as it could, and there were the occasional seconds he felt the universe closing in on itself before he shoved it back harshly again to give him room to breathe. The fact that it never lasted long wasn’t surprising, either. And everyone looked the same. 

 

God, it was like everyone was one of the adults from one of those old Peanuts cartoons. Everything out of their mouths sounded like distorted trumpet noises and Tony could only hope to smile, nod, and read what a teleprompter told him, because at this point he wasn’t even going to bother with trying to be calm and charismatic and independent and anything anyone liked about him and why did anyone like those things anyway, did they ever see how obnoxiously smug he was? He’d punch himself in the face. It all….

 

He wasn’t breathing again. It all was okay. There was no space, no moons, no dust--dust. Fuck. Dust. The entire selection of people at this speech - they’d all had it happen to them. They’d seen it. They knew. Things weren’t alright. Things never would be again. Even if they somehow brought everyone back, even if they changed that, it doesn’t change the fact that out there there’s some child who was holding their mother’s hand only for that hand to fade away into dust. Or worse. The mother looks down, waiting for her kid to ask her when it’s okay to cross the street and--

 

“Stark! Mr. Stark!” 

 

Well. The paparazzi interrupting an existential crisis was perhaps the first noble thing they’d ever done in their lives. But it wasn’t like it’d prevent it. There were people to hold them back right away, but there were cameras flashing, and he knew he looked lost. He couldn’t help it. But the flashes were seemingly going towards something else. Something was more important, more interesting than ‘Tony Stark: Man On the Edge’, and that was something to be grateful for, but that was also something to be alarmed about.

 

He finally noticed it when he saw the figure making a way through the crowd. At first, from his point of view, it looked like maybe a child - someone small, shielding their eyes from the cameras like they’d forgotten their sunglasses on a beach trip. A blue hood was resting on their head, and even if there were the case, it wasn’t enough. Then a voice - a snippy, snarly voice that seemed just discontent to be bothered. 

 

“Oh, piss off. This isn’t the first time you’ve seen a monster!”

 

A monster? So that Dreemurr girl had brought guests. That wasn’t a big deal. Maybe the girl was the one in the blue hood - though that was oddly casual for a press conference. Then again, that was perhaps the point...well, at least that was the first line of thought he’d had before that went flying out the window at the sight of the figure’s face. It was obvious something was off by the whiteness of the face, the unnatural tone beyond pale. And it didn’t look like skin.

 

“E--Excuse me!! Er, us! I’m sorry...agh! Sorry…”  That was a different voice entirely that seemed to be stumbling all over the place, if the looks on the crowd they were making their way through was any indication. “...H-Hey, can you please quit staring…?”

 

The next notable thing was when the blue-hooded figure seemingly shoved their hood off on frustration. At first, he’d contemplated what he saw being a manifestation of grief, but no. That was an actual skeleton, and the little guy was getting bombarded with press. And he was seemingly walking towards him. Not that security wouldn’t stop that--and when they got closer, it was obvious that there was an annoyed-looking flower with a face resting on its arm, and the stumbling figure had been a yellow lizard in a lab coat.

 

“Hey. Stark!” The flower...was speaking to him. Security was immediately getting in the way, but...hell. He’d dealt with a lot of strange things recently and in his entire life. This was practically nothing. “We’re here in place of Frisk Dreemurr.” The flower explained, seemingly bored by the fact that it even had to explain that. “Let us speak to Stark.”

 

“...Let ‘em through.” He was able to choke out those words, at least. The flower looked at him, seeming to almost nod in understanding as the skeleton, flower, and lizard made their way near him. “You’re here in place of the monster ambassador?”

 

“Yessir.” The flower had seemingly taken point, in sharp contrast to the skeleton who just seemed blindsided to the fact that he was even here, along with the lizard, who looked nervous. “I’m Flowey. This is Sans. Our other friend is Alphys.”

 

“Hi.” The lizard - Alphys - waved lightly, with a soft smile. “N--Nice to meet you. I mean. It’s not n-nice with the cir-circumstances, but, um, er, it’s amazing to get to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about human science! ...Not that that’s why we’re here…” The small, nervous voice was almost more calming than anything else. It was reassuring that something like social graces could be what someone was worried about at a time like this, honestly.

 

“Right.” Flowey looked at Sans, seemingly annoyed at his silence. “Sans, why don’t you explain why we’re here?”

 

Sans coughed, looking up at Tony, seeming to all at once turn incredibly nonchalant. “hey. you’re tony stark, right? ….we’re kind of in trouble here. and i know you probably get that a lot, but here me out when i say that...yeah. frisk is gone. she didn’t exactly leave a contingency plan, so here we are. talkin’ to one of the few guys who probably has some idea of what to do, at least more than we do.”  He shrugged. “...but at any rate, that’s the score. frisk’s gone. we’re not. we’d like to help out in any way we can.”

 

“...We’re doing all we can to solve the issue as quickly as possible.” The line came out, practiced, rehearsed. Flowey looked at Sans, then at Tony, and then spoke once more.

 

“God, it’s like watching a play. It’s unnatural. Both of you are spitting out some kind of stupid front.” There was no beating around the bush with this little guy, apparently. Tony almost snorted, but then thought better of it. “Fine. I’ll handle it after all. Like Sans said, our ambassador is gone. The former queen of the monster kingdom is gone as well. The only person we have left is the king, and as you can imagine, he’s not in the best state of mind. Not that anyone is, I’m guessing. And I’d like to make it clear: we need your help. And we want to help you. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum here, despite being the picture children for social anxiety, are incredibly intelligent. Alphys was even the former royal scientist. 

 

So we’d rather not sit on our asses and do a fat load of fuck all while we could help out. You don’t exactly look like a man who knows magic that well. We do. You don’t have the technology we have, we don’t have the technology you have. Turning us away would be turning away the people who have a grasp on a world you don’t understand, and potentially a quicker fix to this for all of us.” The flower seemed to think of something, then motioned to the press behind him, lowering his voice.

 

“Plus….you don’t want to let a group of concerned citizens down, do you? ...You want to get out of here. You’re fidgeting. You probably only barely comprehend half of this. Say yes, and I’ll make a quick escape happen.”  

 

“For a talking flower, you’ve got a hell of an edge to you.” Tony spoke. Flowey chuckled, a smirk on his face.

 

“So I’ve been told. Do we have a deal, Tony?”

 

This was out of the blue, but most things in his life were. “Conditions: only the three of you can come. No letting outsiders know what is going on. You’re guests, but that’s what you are. Guests. Still not as much authority as any Avenger.” 

 

“Mmm. Am I allowed to call out people if they’re being really stupid? ...Because I’ve seen Captain Perfectpants on TV and several PSAs that my friends think are the gospel, and something tells me that he’s not a ‘pragmatic solution’ guy when that might be all we have.”  Okay, that was kind of funny. Tony extended a hand.

 

“Deal.” 

 

Flowey shook the hand with the leaf, and with that, Tony went on--

 

“Evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am deeply sorry that this tragedy has taken place, and I am even more sorry that it has gone so far as to affect the entire world. It’s never been easy during crisis situations, but the thing we need to focus on most at this point in time is hope. We cannot give up on solutions, on what we can do, on pressing forward like so many others would want us to do. Know that the Avengers are working on a solution--”

 

There was a loud sob at that moment, and what Tony could see out of the corner of his eye was Sans trying to tug Flowey back discouragingly as the flower spoke into one of Alphys’s ears. “No, no no, no--” She mumbled. Tony paused. “....And that it will be presented soon. Keep your eyes and ears open, and we’ve--we’ve got this under control. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He stepped off stage, and walked over to Alphys and the other two. Flowey was smiling innocently up at him, and Sans was looking simply resigned, if what little he could decipher out of the skeleton’s expression said anything.  “What did you do?” He asked, looking between the three.

 

“Hey. I just gave a reminder. Nothing too out of the ordinary. It’s an excuse as good as any and it makes you look good, let’s go.” Flowey motioned for them to leave with one leaf, seeming nonchalant at Alphys’s reaction, while the lizard was still tearing up. “Time is wasting.”

 

“....Is he always like this?” Tony asked, looking at Sans. Sans heaved out a sigh, then snickered.

 

“more or less. would you believe this is him on a good day? ...sometimes all you can do is laugh.” The skeleton looked over at Alphys, and gently patted her back. “...hey. ‘s okay. we’re fixing things, remember? ...none of that stuff is true.” Flowey let out an overdramatic groan, and Sans looked back at him with almost narrowed eyelights. “hey. everything’s...vine. we’ll leaf as soon as we can.” Puns. The skeleton was doing puns. 

Still, it was easy enough for Alphys to take the attention away from him. “I...I hope this isn’t too much trouble for you, Mr. Stark. It’s spur-of-the-moment, and I kn-know, it’s dangerous…” She mumbled. In truth, the fact that it would be dangerous for these three just as well was only just now occurring to Tony’s scrambled mind, but they were eager to go for it. Like the flower had said, it would likely be better than them waiting around...and Alphys’s presence was almost reassuring in itself.

 

So as Alphys took the lead, mumbling apologies to Tony, who was listening politely, Sans and Flowey were bringing up the rear. “did you really have to remind her that undyne’s dead?” Sans asked flatly, looking at Flowey. Flowey snorted. “i’m serious. it’s not funny. i know you’ve got a weird grasp on everything in your warped head, but we could’ve found an easier way to get out of this.”

 

“I’m sorry, Sans. Did you want to be the target of the plan instead? Because I know every last one of your buttons and how to press them.” Flowey was entirely nonchalant. “She got over it fine. She’s babbling to Stark. It’s fine.”

 

“it’s not--...” Sans sighed, reluctantly dropping it for now. Flowey didn’t pay it any heed, either being distracted or knowing that he’d ‘won’ for now. At any rate, they’d been making a beeline for a car, a limo that Tony had apparently arrived in. Flowey let out a small whistle, smirking just a tad.

 

“I’ll give Stark one thing, he’s got a sense of style. This car screams ‘hey, I’m too important for your normal person bullshit’. I love it.” 

 

“it’s pretty nice. maybe it even has cup holders.”

 

“Are you thinking small on purpose or is that just where your mind goes immediately?”

 

“both? look, a good cup holder is important. if i’m riding around i want a place to put my ketchup. otherwise i’m going to spill that all over me, and it’ll get all sticky. i’ll be sticky and wet.”

 

“....Okay, now you’re saying things just to mess with me.”

 

“my sticky wet body isn’t a joke, flowey.”

 

“Piss off.”

 

Sans chuckled as they hopped into the car, Alphys immediately reaching for a seatbelt, taking the seat next to Tony. Sans and Flowey opted to sit on the opposite side, Sans putting on the seatbelt as Flowey rested on his arm. Something that Sans had taken notice of was that the weather outside was actually fairly downcast, and as if the sky itself knew the atmosphere, it started raining as the car started up. The pit-pat of rain against the window was at least distracting, if nothing else, but it wasn’t enough to get his mind off of everything right away.

 

Papyrus was gone. He’d done so many things - tried so hard to prevent that, and he’d stopped fearing that when they’d gotten to the surface. His little brother was fine. He was happy. He was managing. And then, all of the sudden, he wasn’t. He couldn’t take solace in the fact that at least he could go tell jokes with that old lady in the ruins, Toriel was gone too. And the kid….Frisk. She was missing, too. Each one of them meant something different to him, none less important than the other, but the thing that bit at him the most was that the face coming to him most constantly wasn’t his little brother’s. It wasn’t Toriel’s, either. 

 

It was Frisk’s.

 

He’d spent so much time with the girl who he kept calling ‘kid’, though she was right, she was only 5 years younger than him. He’d just taken on a habit of calling her that, and it’d become more affectionate than anything. Certainly, he didn’t trust her to begin with. When they’d met in the Underground, he’d seen her as an unpredictable variable. If she went off-track, if she lashed out, she could ruin everything. 

 

The only reason why he hadn’t gone past his own morals and decided killing her was a better option than guiding her was because Toriel had asked him to watch over her, and if it meant that much to someone who’d kept him company, who’d been a comforting presence to him...that was the least he could do to repay her. 

 

Yet over time, he’d found himself getting attached to the human. Maybe it was when she’d taken a ridiculous amount of time to inspire Shyren to sing. Maybe it was when she’d made the effort to go on what Papyrus had called a date, despite obviously knowing good and well that it was ridiculous. Maybe it was when he’d realized she had no intention to hurt anyone, and even if everyone was violent against her, she’d brave the storm just to help people out.

 

But at some point, watching her became less of an obligation, and more genuine in intent. She wasn’t a bad person. She was one of the few people with that kind of hope left within her. It was almost inspiring. Even if the thought that she could ruin everything still lurked within him - when he’d taken her to dinner, when he’d admitted he would’ve killed her if Toriel hadn’t told him otherwise...it came out as harsh. Bitter. He was almost startled by his own tone as much as she was. She hadn’t said a word, but that’d caused a rift until it was patched over, but when they’d left, when she’d chosen to stay with the monsters…

 

Her sense of humor, her smile, the way she could get the better of him at times and they could just go on one-upping each other...those were the things he’d miss most. He knew what this meant, he knew damn well what this meant, but it wasn’t as if it meant anything now. It could’ve. Maybe. At some point. She’d have mocked him for it. Claimed ‘oh, so those weren’t dates already you took me on?’ That would’ve just made him melt with that laugh, that….fuck.

 

_ LONGING AND LOSS AREN’T UNFAMILIAR TO YOU, ARE THEY? _

 

The skeleton’s eyelights widened as he looked alarmed for a split-second, before he realized what was going on. “Psst. Psst. Sans. Sans!” Flowey was trying to get his attention. “You still with us? ….You looked downright broken. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but in this situation I sort of have to, so hey, are you doing okay?” 

 

“i’m fine.” Sans mumbled. Flowey seemed unconvinced, but didn’t say so explicitly.

 

“Did you hear anything that was going on?”

 

“no.”

 

“Okay. Well. There’s a plane at the airport. Stark’s taking us to that plane. We’re going to Wakanda, which is where all the other heroes that survived what he calls the snap are located. That’s in Africa, so we’re taking a flight there which should take a few hours. Alphys has already texted Asgore to give him a heads up of what is going on, and everything else is hush-hush, we’ll know when we get there sorta stuff.” Flowey explained, before letting out an annoyed sigh. “By the way, you know I don’t buy a word of that ‘I’m actually fine’ bullshit, right? You’re not. I’m just going to let you chew on that until you tell me what you’re actually thinking about.”

 

There was a moment of silence, before Flowey spoke again. “...If it’s Papyrus, though, that’s...reasonable.” He admitted, a hint of empathy coming to his voice for just a half-second, before the quiet took the two over again. This took another few minutes to get over, before Flowey himself started peering out the window. Everything felt cold. Distant. Like there was something there, for just a moment, and then there wasn’t, and that was that. The note of finality to the whole thing was perhaps what was the most ominous of all, but he’d never say so. He took a look back to Stark, and the businessman had also fallen quiet, staring at his phone and pinching the bridge of his forehead. Flowey knew it wasn’t his place to ask, and Sans and Alphys knew the same. 

 

It was Tony himself who broke the silence.

 

“The people we’re going to see--all of them, as you can probably understand--are still in mourning. We’re missing a few good members. If you expected anyone around to be particularly hopeful, that’s not going to be the case, and not everyone’s going to take to having new people around easily.”

 

It seemed like almost the obvious, but he went on. “I don’t know why I agreed to have you three come with me. Might just be the fact that knowing that there are people out there wanting to fix this that aren’t me that helps. Might just be because there’s no one who has judgment on you all, so whatever call is made here...it’s less likely to hurt anyone that I know of directly. But I did. And we’re going to do what it takes to get the world restored. I don’t know anything about you all beyond the bare minimum of your names, but you three probably know who I am, or at least who the press has told you I am. At some point, just for my sake - making it even wouldn’t hurt.”

 

It was like everyone had a barrier. A boundary set in front of them, a mask they refused to let down for even one second. In the middle of the dust, there was still fighting, but fighting who, exactly, was the question.

 

In the middle of the dust, a girl woke up, gasping like she had nearly drowned.

 

The drowning feeling, seemingly, had taken everyone, and even a world away, it could be felt.


	3. Opera of the Wasteland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I walk the maze of moments  
> But everywhere I turn to  
> Begins a new beginning  
> But never finds a finish  
> I walk to the horizon  
> And there I find another  
> It all seems so surprising  
> And then I find that I know
> 
> You go there you're gone forever  
> I go there I'll lose my way  
> If we stay here we're not together  
> Anywhere is  
> \- 'Anywhere Is', Enya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooookay last time ever i try to update chapters while being half-asleep  
> anywho  
> here's another chapter idk hope u like

In the middle of the dust, a girl woke up, gasping like she had nearly drowned. 

 

She slowly sat up, rubbed at her eyes, and wondered if what she had wiped away was sleep, or more dust.  Nothing registered to her - nothing yet, at least, and the situation at hand didn’t even occur to her. The world around her was a blur, as it was to most people when they woke up. They escaped their dreams. They thought simple thoughts, because that was all you could imagine doing in the morning. 

 

Her first thought was that she was hungry. Toast would’ve been nice. Easy to prepare, left her time to do other activities, it was simple. It was easy.

 

And then she realized the situation she was in.

 

And she gasped again. The cold sweat that she didn’t even realize she was having had taken her over, and she tried to steady her breathing, staring at her hand. It was whole. It was a normal hand, with faded purple nail polish on each nail that she’d painted on one night when she’d been awake for far too long, and Flowey had mentioned that purple was his favorite color. She’d matched it, and it’d almost made him smile. Now, it was just a reminder that she was who she was. She was Frisk. 

 

The area around her, however, wasn’t what it was. Not at all. She’d been sleeping on what looked like red sand, and the sky above looked like it was permanently in a sunset. The main color around her was red, and it almost made her feel at home. A red SOUL. A red planet. Yet she’d never known this place before, and that thought brought her more than a little bit of horror. She got up, pushing some sand or dust off her clothes, and she took a look around. There were some rock formations, there was clearly a distance to be walked in, but where was she going? She wasn’t sure. But the wind was blowing from the east. So that was the way she went. 

 

The crunch of the sand beneath her feet was the only noise she could hear. The rest was just a distant empty hum of a planet where only she existed. A place where she was the only inhabitant, not of her own free will, but a place that seemed designed for her. But the silence itself was torturous. A pin dropping would’ve practically made the impact of a wave. So as she kept walking, she hummed softly. That tune that constantly kept her at ease, that melody she’d played at Waterfall. The comforting tune that followed her around. That was enough. And, at least, she noted, the wind, despite blowing occasionally, wasn’t stirring up the sand. The sand remained in place, none blistering her eyes, none that seemed to take the environment over and make it harsh. The place around her wasn’t harsh. It felt protective, even. Like there was a worse fate, but she was there. She was safe, because she was there.

 

But where was home, in comparison? Was this death? She’d never considered herself a religious person, but no matter what religion anyone subscribed to, she’d never heard of an afterlife where the primary characteristics were being arid and being red. If it had to be anywhere in the afterlife, she would’ve imagined purgatory to be the most apt description. It wasn’t heaven, but it wasn’t a punishment either.

 

The walking persisted for a while, until she squinted, seeing a shape. A person. Another person. They seemed to have paused in the sand, looking at the distance like they were thinking things over. If Frisk had to guess, the figure - whoever it was - was taller than her. Probably older, as well. Their stance wasn’t shaky, and it seemed almost resolute. Most notably, it seemed like they had a mask on, and a long coat.

 

They both paused, neither moving an inch.

 

This lasted two minutes exactly, and then the figure fell. It wasn’t slow. It was immediate, like exhaustion had hit the person all at once, and they just couldn’t handle it anymore. Frisk bolted over in concern, finally breaking the silence. “Hey! Hey, are you okay?” Her voice came out raspy at first, as if even she were surprised to be speaking, but the figure seemed to be even more startled, moving to sit up from their worn out position. As Frisk drew closer, the figure became more visible. It was a man. A man that was definitely older than her, wearing a mask that looked like unfamiliar technology - maybe something that Undyne would’ve thought was ‘badass’, really. He was wearing a long, maroon coat, and had a grey shirt on under it, with black pants. His breathing showed he was tired, but with a quick button press, the mask seemingly disappeared into a mechanism behind his left ear. 

 

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.” Now his face was shown, and he flashed her a reassuring smile. He was a normal human, like her. “Just, uh. A little tired. Might’ve tripped there. It’s been a long while of walking…” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But hey! I didn’t expect to see anyone else here. I haven’t for a while now. And, uh….I don’t know you.” That last part seemed like it hit him with a sense of confusion and relief at the same time. “Who are you?”

 

“I could be asking you the same thing.” Frisk replied. “But my name is Frisk. Frisk Dreemurr. Ambassador of the Underground’s Monsterkind.”

 

That last part only seemed to make the confusion more apparent. “Okay. Frisk. I’m Peter. Peter Quill. I’m not a diplomat or an ambassador of anything of anywhere, so if you were looking for a conference...I don’t think you’re in the right place.” 

 

“I wasn’t. I actually don’t know where this is.”

 

“Well. Sure ain’t Kansas, if nothin’ else.” Frisk wouldn’t let anyone know this, but she and Sans both knew that they shared a common ability, and that was the ability to read people fairly easily and see little actions that showed their true character. It was difficult for some people, certainly, but Frisk’s natural empathy made it a bit of a given talent to her. And what she could read off of this guy so far was….well. He seemed like Sans, on the outset. 

 

A cheerful guy. Treats everyone like a friend immediately when he meets them, but clearly has walls up for some reason or another. Secretly beyond exhausted, but pushes himself more than he really should for the sake of appearing fine and taking things easy. A living paradox of taking things easy and overworking himself...to the bone, as Sans might’ve said. Quill had collapsed in the dust before this, and here he was making a Wizard of Oz joke like it was nothing. Yet having a person like that be the first one she met, after walking alone for a while, feeling more lost than ever…

 

It felt familiar. Reassuring. 

 

“You never know. Travel guides do make places you’ve never been out to be better than they really are, and, well, I’ve never been.” Frisk smiled lightly. Quill chuckled, picking himself up from the sitting position he’d had, and shrugged lightly.

 

“Honestly, you might have a point. But circumstances...don’t think a vacation is what we’re in for.” He bit the inside of his lip, then asked the question that hung over this whole encounter. “So I’m guessing the whole dust bit happened to you too, yeah?”

 

“Mm.” Frisk nodded. “One minute I was in my friend’s living room checking the TV...then my arm started breaking into particles. And now I’m here.” 

 

“D’ast.” Quill mumbled, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not like it’s your fault.” Something that Frisk picked up on when she’d said that, however, was that Quill noticeably tensed, just a little, for a half-second, as if he himself didn’t trust that it wasn’t in fact his fault. “I mean, the same thing happened to you, right?”

 

“Yeah. It’s, uh...it’s a long story.”

 

“Long in the sense that it’s actually long, or long in the sense that you just really don’t want to talk about it?” Frisk asked, almost knowingly. Quill heaved out a small sigh, not losing the smile on his face.

 

“Both? Sorta both.”

 

“That’s fair.” At any rate, if he didn’t want to tell her, he didn’t have to. Though, much like Sans, this guy was shaping up to be a bit of a puzzle. Lines of questioning that’d mostly hit dead ends, lighthearted banter to cover up whenever anything led to questions, just that general air of fear that if someone knew certain things, they’d see him in a different light. But that was just a guess with her intuition. Maybe it was just something ridiculous. “But...I guess if we’re here, that means we must not be alone, right?”

 

“Well, yeah.” Quill’s face lit up just a bit, seeming to dawn with a small realization. “That means my team--my team is probably around here somewhere.” 

 

“Team?” Frisk asked. Quill hummed, made the motion for her to follow after him, and then began speaking once more.

 

“Yeah, uh. Team. That’s a little bit of a long story, too, but to make it shorter...you seem like you’re from Earth. And I was. Emphasis on was. I’ve lived most of my life in space. I’m like an Avenger, but cooler, because space is cooler. My team is called the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s me, and a few...I guess you’d call ‘em aliens? Aliens. Pretty vague term, but yeah.”

 

“Oh!” Frisk grinned, keeping pace with her new companion. “So like Star Wars.”

 

“Exactly like Star Wars!” Quill seemed almost genuinely flattered by the comparison. “I’m the Han Solo, obviously.”

 

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed.” Frisk smirked. Quill snorted. “So you steal things, you hang out with a tall hairy guy who communicates mostly in roars, and you think you’re way more charming than you actually are?”

 

“...First of all, Han Solo is genuinely the definition of charming and he can think that as much as he so pleases because he is right. Second of all, yeah, pretty much, but replace the tall hairy guy with ‘talking tree that communicates mostly in one sentence.’” Frisk raised a brow at that last bit, but Quill simply shrugged. “Aliens. Wide variety. I didn’t even mention the talking raccoon.”

 

Frisk shrugged in return. “My best friend is a talking flower, so I’m not going to judge.” Quill glanced down at her.

 

“I thought you were from Earth.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Then...talking flower?”

 

“He’s a monster.” Frisk explained. “A long time ago, humans and monsters lived in harmony, until a great war. After this war, humans banished the monsters underground, where they’ve been trapped ever since. Until the barrier was broken, and not too long ago, they were freed. I helped with it.” 

 

“So wait. Even when I was on Earth as a kid, there were monsters underground?” Quill asked. Frisk nodded. “....Huh. Is that why ‘monster’ is an insulting term? ….Am I accidentally being racist right now? Because if I am I am so sorry, my friends could probably be classified as monsters, so--” 

 

Frisk snickered, waving a hand. “Nah, nah. It’s fine. Humans just aren’t used to the presence of Monsters yet, so whatever happened in the past...it’s peaceful now. So it’s being taken in stride. As long as you don’t explicitly express outright fear at seeing a talking skeleton, no big deal.” She looked away, looking ahead into the middle-distance. “...Even that’s sort of not a big deal. In the way that...it happens, but we can’t really stop it.”

 

Quill frowned softly, shaking his head as he looked to the distance as well. “That’s not right. At all. I mean, where I come from it’s all shapes and sizes that get seen as normal, but even if they’re not...one of my friends, Rocket...he’s dealt with stuff like that. I’ve seen how it hurts people, and it’s...it’s just not okay. It’s even less okay if I’d have to stand up for him, or if you’d have to stand up for your friends. Though Rocket wouldn’t ever really let me stand up for him. He’d sooner tell someone to piss off than politely try to reach an agreement.”

 

“He sounds like Flowey. Really grumpy, thinks the worst of people, but probably really cares about them deep down?”

 

“Bingo.”

 

“Yep.” Frisk nodded. “...I don’t like the situation either, but it takes time for change. So that’s all we can hope for.” There was silence for a few seconds until Quill spoke again.

 

“So Flowey is your flower friend?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“He doesn’t sound anything like Groot. Groot’s my tree friend. He’s pretty gentle, well-intentioned...well. He was. Then he sorta...got reborn? He’s probably a little younger than you now, mentally.” 

 

“So what you’re saying is that even tree monsters hit puberty, and it hits like a truck?”

 

“You get it.”

 

“Rough.  Poor guy.”

 

“It happens to the best of us.” The two passed by a rock column, and Frisk ran her hand across it as they walked. “So what are some of your other friends like? You mentioned skeletons?”

 

“Yep. Sans and Papyrus. They’re brothers. Sans is short, wears a blue hoodie, and tells a lot of pun-based jokes. He’s nice, and he’s stronger than he looks, but he’s one of those people that takes a while to really trust anyone.” Frisk admitted. “Papyrus is louder, wears a red scarf, and likes to experiment with cooking. He’s got a huge heart, and he wants to be a hero, but he’s almost too nice for his own good. He thinks everyone can be a good person if they try.”

 

“Genuinely?”

 

“Genuinely.”

 

“God. What I’d give to really think like that.” Quill seemed to be thinking a few things over, but wasn’t speaking of them. “They sound like fun guys, though. And it’s always nice to be around people who believe the best of people, it’s just...hard. ‘Cause you don’t want to ruin that for ‘em.”

 

“You sound like you’ve been through a lot.” Frisk’s words seemed to have hit him harder than he was willing to admit, with the shaky laugh he gave in return.

 

“That’s, ah, that’s putting it lightly.”

 

“I can imagine. ...Hey, who else is on your team?”

 

“Oh, my team? Umm. There’s a big guy who loves fighting and taking center stage...but he’s a really good guy deep down. Named Drax. And a girl who has two antennae on the top of her head, has emotional-based powers named Mantis. And there’s also Gamora…” That last name felt like something he regretted saying almost the minute it was out of his mouth. “...Green. Tall. Deadliest woman in the galaxy.”  The look in his eyes was wistful. There was no doubt in Frisk’s mind that something had happened to Gamora, though exactly what was yet to be known. 

 

“They all sound like they’d make for great friends.” Frisk smiled lightly. Quill chuckled softly.

 

“They’re more like family at this point, really.”

 

“I know the feeling.”

 

It was only a few seconds later when there was another unfamiliar sight in the distance. It was what appeared to be a young girl - far younger than herself, Frisk had to note - around the age of 6. Or 7. Somewhere in that range. She was small, and next to her, was a tall figure who seemed a mix of perplexed and attempting to be reassuring.

 

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND. WHAT DO YOU MEA--” The voice was familiar, too. Loud. Nasally, in a way, but enough to be endearing. It was the sort of voice you’d expect from only one person.

 

“Papyrus?!” 

 

“HUMAN?!” Papyrus was immediately distracted, looking around, until he noticed Frisk. His face practically lit up like a Christmas tree when he noticed the human, running over to give her a hug. Quill stepped back a bit as he did so, looking at the scene with a smile that seemed to gradually get weaker the more he stared at that child, small hints of realization and fear darting in his eyes. The child, for her part, seemed distant. Like all of this was something she expected to happen, and that if she put herself into it, it wouldn’t make any sense.  

 

“I THOUGHT I MIGHT NOT FIND ANYONE ELSE HERE!” Papyrus was clearly fighting back tears, as he sometimes did when emotional. No one had ever called him too much out on it, but they all knew that he couldn’t help it at times. “WELL. ANYONE ELSE I KNEW, AT LEAST! I HAVE GAMORA HERE--”

 

Quill’s breath caught in his throat as a small hum played through his mind, hearing the name Gamora. Frisk tensed up a tiny bit, realizing that something was off- Quill had mentioned her, she was green, tall, deadliest woman in the galaxy, something had happened...but the little girl Papyrus had to be referring to, well, she was green, but not remotely tall, and she didn’t seem particularly deadly, either. She just seemed...melancholy. But it was up to Frisk to get them all to a place where they could manage all this, mentally.

 

“Oh? That’s great!” Frisk slowly pulled away from the hug, thankful that it wasn’t a back-breaking one that Papyrus seemed to dole out at random (with Undyne, you could at least be sure that every hug was going to be a painful one, but with Papyrus, the random nature made it just that much more of a gamble). “It’s nice to meet you, Gamora.”

 

“Nice to meet you too.” Gamora replied immediately, softly. “You’re Frisk? Papyrus mentioned you.”

 

“That’s me, yep!” Frisk nodded, then glanced back at Quill with a smile. “Papyrus, this is Peter Quill. He’s in the same situation as us, too.”

 

Papyrus seemed to recognize the name - if only slightly - judging by a small blink, but as usual, marched over, and extended a hand. “PLEASED TO MEET YOU, HUMAN! I...AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NYEH HEH HEH!”

 

Quill’s mind had at least frozen on the thought of ‘wow, I finally get to meet Skeletor in person. Neat!’ But at least he hadn’t said it out loud, and simply tossed a smile back. “Papyrus? Nice to meet you too, Frisk mentioned ya.” He shook his hand, before putting his hands in his pockets, trying not to look in Gamora’s direction. 

 

“GAMORA MENTIONED YOU TOO!” Oh. Here we go. Quill braced himself for the worst-- “DID YOU REALLY SAVE AN ENTIRE PLANET BY DANCING???” ….Okay, now Gamora was just smirking a tad, he could tell that out of the corner of his eye, and really, was this the time to--

 

“You did what?” Frisk half-smirked with a snort. 

 

“Okay. Look. Yes. I did. But it was awesome. I’m awesome.” 

 

“I HAVE NO DOUBT! I ONLY MENTIONED IT BECAUSE OF HOW COOL IT WAS!!! MY FRIEND METTATON WOULD’VE CONSIDERED IT ONE OF MANKIND’S GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS, IF HE’D KNOWN! AND EVEN I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT SOMEDAY!!” This...was something that Quill was unprepared for. “YOU’VE GOT A HERO NAME, TOO! AND WHEN I HEARD THAT, I THOUGHT ‘WOWIE, THAT GUY HAD TO BE SUPER COOL!’ GAMORA SAID THAT YOU WERE PRETTY NEAT, AND I DO SO AGREE!!”

 

Quill’s now most present thought was ‘I have only known Papyrus for a few minutes, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this nightmare environment, and then myself.’ But he recovered fairly quickly with a laugh. Gamora stepped forward, taking a small look around. 

 

“That’s everyone we should have right now. We should go.” She said simply, and turned around as if she were a small robot following orders. Quill’s mouth opened a bit, before it slowly closed. Frisk looked up at him with concern, but immediately, Quill was following after.

 

“What do you mean ‘everyone we should have’? Gamora? Hey?” He asked, perhaps a bit more outwardly nervous than he’d have liked to portray. “Why are you a kid? Why are you here? Why…?”

 

“Peter.” Her voice came, calming. Even if it was younger, lighter, Quill would recognize that tone, that inflection anywhere. “You’ll get explanations with time. We need to go meet the Caretaker now.”

 

“The Caretaker?” Quill repeated, questioningly. 

 

“He takes care of this realm. I trust you’d like to get back to the world of the living. He’s the only one that might know the way through.” Quill was tellingly hollowly silent, and Gamora looked back at him. He knew that look better than any other, even on a smaller frame. “You do. You’ve left too much behind to give up.”

 

“I…” Quill couldn’t muster up a response, and trudged along. “Can I at least know why you’re not an adult? That’s kinda freaking me out.”

 

Gamora sighed. “...Thanos had to sacrifice the last thing he loved. The person closest to his heart. That wasn’t me as an adult.  He never truly knew me then. But as a child…he was one of the few things I did know. That’s the Gamora he loved. That’s the Gamora he sacrificed. And being the Soul Stone’s sacrifice…”

Quill’s features twitched with underlying fury. “Gamora, he never loved you, he--”

 

“He did. In his own twisted way, he did.” Gamora responded, not giving Quil the chance he wanted so badly to go on a tirade of how she never deserved any of that, not giving him the moment to get himself more wound up and emotionally wounded than he already was. Sometimes, Quill’s worst enemy was himself, and his favorite tactic in that regard was to get so fixated on a certain thing that needed to be fixed that he put himself into needless risk or collapsed into terrible guilt later. “And I loved him. I still do. You don’t have the right to say how people feel, Quill. Even if you feel that way.”

 

The response came out cold. Quill flinched like he’d been shot, and was speechless as they continued walking. A bit back, Frisk and Papyrus followed after the two. “do you know what is going on?” Papyrus whispered, looking ahead at the two. Frisk sighed, shaking her head. “...it seems worrying.”

 

“it’s not really our business, pap.” Frisk responded, as Papyrus himself looked at the ground, trudging a bit ahead in the silence. It was a dour mood that took the group, up until there was a certain howl amongst the sands. It was unnatural. Otherworldly. A feeling Frisk couldn’t quite place, but at the same time, could. Gamora stood at a halt, as a swiring force of black morphed into a being clad in a black robe and hood, the hood covering its face.

 

“SO. WE HAVE OUR COMPANY, DO WE?” That voice. That voice was familiar, and Frisk was the one to step before the group now. Sharply, the black clad figure seemed to look down at the girl, noting her presence in particular. “IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU ALL. I AM THE CARETAKER. ALL WEARY, LOST SOULS IN THIS REALM ARE MINE TO GUIDE, AND ALL ARE MINE TO FREE, PROVIDED THAT THEY PROVE THEMSELVES WORTHY OF SUCH LUXURIES.” 

 

“We have to pass tests to return to life, is that it?” Frisk asked. “What do they entail?”

 

“SACRIFICE, YOUNG ONE. SACRIFICE AND DETERMINATION.” The Caretaker paused. “BUT YOU’RE QUITE FAMILIAR WITH BOTH, AREN’T YOU, FRISK?”

 

“...Yes, sir.” Frisk’s response came hesitantly. Quill, watching the scene, decided to get involved judging by Frisk’s uncertain tone.

 

“How do you know her name? Or anything about her?” He asked, a firm frown on his face. 

 

“I KNOW EVERYONE IN THIS REALM, STAR-LORD.” The voice seemed almost amused. “JUST AS I KNOW SHE IS FRISK DREEMURR, I KNOW YOU ARE PETER JASON QUILL. AN EMOTIONALLY DRIVEN, TERRIFIED HUMAN, BUT NOT QUITE. ...IT’S THE HUMAN SIDE THAT GETS THE BETTER OF YOU SOMETIMES, ISN’T IT?”

 

That was definitely one of Quill’s buttons. The Caretaker chuckled at the increasingly frustrated look on the half-human’s face as he waved one sleeve, the images of several asleep figures appearing in an arc between his hands. “BUT WITH THESE TESTS...I’LL MAKE A DEAL. EVERY TEST YOU PASS, YOU’LL GAIN FOUR MORE COMPANIONS. EVERY TEST YOU LOSE...YOU’LL BE HERE LONGER THAN YOU COULD IMAGINE. I DO EXPECT SUCCESS. BUT I KNOW HOW ALL OF YOU VALUE YOUR BONDS. YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR FAMILY. EVERYONE YOU LOVE.”

 

Frisk stared up at the crystals, instantly recognizing a few of the still slumbering figures. Toriel...Undyne...Mettaton...they were here. She knew they were here. Quill was going through the same crisis, looking at Drax, Mantis, Groot...and as they stared, both nodded in unison, though Frisk did pause before doing so, looking up into the seeming darkness of the Caretaker’s hood.

 

“Do I know you?”

 

“YOU WILL.” Was the response. And then he was gone. Gamora closed her eyes for a brief moment, and began walking, the others pausing in confusion for a moment before they followed. It was silent for a while, and the atmosphere was tense with the air of uncertainty, until it happened like a sudden shock, sharply digging into the minds of the three that followed.

 

“Frisk…” She knew the voice. She knew the voice, and it immediately made her jolt up in fear. “Is that what you’re calling yourself?” It was a rough feminine voice that took her, and she clenched her teeth together. That laugh. She always hated that laugh. It was a sign of joy, of happiness, and she’d never wanted her to be happy, not once in her life--...no. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

 

At the same time, however, Quill himself had stopped in uncertain fear. The voice he heard, instead, was a quiet masculine one, with an amused lilt to his voice. “I warned you that you’d only hurt yourself by forming mortal connections, son.” His reaction was immediate, placing a hand on his gun holster, only to not see anyone. That bastard was around, he knew he was, but where--?!

 

“You know that’s not your name.”

“You know you were foolish to believe.”

 

“This is the first test.” Gamora’s voice rang out, disrupting the thoughts for one moment. “You must accept what you’ve lost. Who you’ve lost. Why you’ve lost them. And you must be at peace with your loss to begin anew.”

 

“Francine.”

 

Somehow, it all didn’t seem to matter when she was pulled back in by that one name. That one word. A word she had violently torn off, thrown away, discarded of...and yet there it was, staring her in the face. “Francine. Do you hear me?” And she was back. Back into that living room that was supposed to feel cozy. That home on the corner of the street that had stayed there for ages. Her teeth clenched as she looked down at the floor. A small pat at her arm, and she recognized it. No. No.

 

“Sis. Listen.” Her voice was soft like a tiny harp playing, and her hand was on her arm. Frisk hesitated for a brief moment, her eyes welling up with tears, before she looked down. Rose. The sister she’d left behind. “...Are you okay? Don’t cry.” Sometimes she didn’t understand, but she knew, she knew when things weren’t right if it was right in front of her. Frisk slowly sank down, wrapping her younger sister into a hug. The small girl hugged back, gently. “Don’t cry.” She repeated. “You’re a sweetheart.” She said, saying the same thing they did every time they hugged.

 

“You’re a sweetheart.” Frisk followed.

 

“You’re a good girl, and I love you, love you, love you.”

 

“You’re a good girl, and I love you, love you, love you.” Frisk repeated. It’d been so long since she’d said those words. So long since she’d looked Rose in the eyes, but then--then she knew she was there. It wasn’t much, but it was some small singing in the background from a tall woman. It was enough for her to feel enraged. 

 

She’d spent her entire life trying to get away from this woman. She wondered if she even knew how much she hated her. How much she’d driven her own daughter to loathe her truly and utterly. How much she’d....everything. Mom. The word had left a bad taste in Frisk’s mouth for the longest time. For good reason, she knew. She treated her own children like nothing but a burden to her, she forced constant questions of double-judgment, flew into rages over the slightest thing being wrong, there was no time for anyone to be a child, because she couldn’t take care of herself without throwing a fit.

 

Francine Holland had grown up the youngest of the family until her little sister, Rose, had been born. The family was wealthy. There was no reason for them to worry, because the predecessors of the family had worked hard, so the younger generations had no need to for a good while. This led to a spoiled attitude from her mother, and she’d been the sort to run off and marry the first man her parents disapproved of, as well, so that was the set of birth parents she’d been dealing with. But on the surface, it was all fine. Because it had to be fine. If it wasn’t fine, the blame had to go to someone, and that was never pleasant.

 

She had stayed. For years and years, she’d stayed. She was there to protect Rose. She claimed that all day and all night she’d protect Rose. And then one day she’d just...given up. Decided things would be happier if she ran away. Decided that all of it was useless. And if the stories passed around in hushed rumors and legends she’d vaguely seen on the internet were true...monsters. Humans. Maybe being with monsters would be easier. She hadn’t even thought about Rose when she’d left, she’d just...left. Wordless. Hate in her heart. She’d climbed Mt. Ebott, her knees scraped and torn, and fallen down the mountain. If she found the monsters, then she’d have a new start.

 

If she found nothing, chances were she wouldn’t last long anyway, and that was okay.

 

She’d gotten lucky, and it’d been the former. Maybe, sometimes, she’d wondered if she was more similar to Flowey than she’d let on. Her last thought when she’d been falling was - if she could remember it - a firm ‘No. I don’t want to die.’ And perhaps that was what saved her.  It had gotten her into the Ruins.

 

And Toriel’s immediate care for her state. Her lack of accusation, of judgment...it was different. That was how the word ‘mom’ had slipped from her throat, that was how she’d stayed, she’d never left, she’d never even bothered to check what became of the family she left behind, because it didn’t matter, and because...because….because she was scared. And even now, feeling that situation again, feeling that pain, knowing she was helpless to it, she’d ran off and just...replaced what she’d never have with something she could, something that some people would never know just because they weren’t twisted enough to think that falling down into the world beneath the Earth was a great idea…

 

It was disgusting. She was disgusting.

 

Frisk’s eyes darted to the ground. How could she accept that? When she still felt that familiar tugging on her sleeve, heard that singing that made her so furious, knew that she’d...just left the poor little girl who had no choice to her mother, who if she saw her favorite snack was missing would fly into a rage and blame her and try to punish her for it--

 

She screamed.

 

“Are you going to just let your mistakes haunt you? You did a shitty thing. Own up to it.” That was a voice she knew. Suddenly, it wasn’t a small girl tugging on her sleeve. It was someone much taller, about her height, about her strength...Frisk quickly looked up, only to be face to face with the ever-too-familiar face of Chara. “Hey there, Frisky bits. Miss me?” The immediate hug that Chara got wrapped into caused the green-sweatered girl to let out a groan. “Agh. Okay. Yes. I’ll take that as a yes.”

 

Frisk slowly pulled away, her words temporarily wiped from her palette, as she smiled softly at the other girl, tears in her eyes. Chara sighed, wiping the tears from her face with her own sweater sleeve. “I kinda felt like you were stuck. So...let’s work together like we did way back when, ‘kay? We’ll catch up.” She smirked. Frisk nodded rapidly, before Chara began. “But first...look at yourself, Frisk. What do you do because of your past? What are you going on doing? Like you’ve always done. ...You ran away to make a new family, sure, but you never stopped feeling bad for it. Every moment of your life since then has been in service to someone else. You give. You give. You give. You don’t let yourself ever take, because you haven’t let yourself be yourself in years. Who are you, apart from Frisk, savior of monsters? The fallen human? The wonder girl that solves every problem without resorting to violence? You felt so bad about who you were that she just doesn’t even exist anymore. You’re a blank slate.” She stated, letting out a sigh. “I mean. We’re both the same. We don’t’ let onto anything like that. But this is your trial. You don’t like everyone. You can’t like everyone. You can’t solve everything and just make the entire world become friends, either. It just doesn’t work like that. Not that violence is the answer either, but…”

 

“The world is balanced.” Frisk spoke. “...I…” She looked down.

 

“You are your own person, Frisk.” Chara stated. “That’s the only way any of this will become the past.”

 

“............” Frisk flinched. “I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry I left. It was petulant. It was stupid. But I don’t feel bad about it. I feel bad about leaving Rose, but...I can’t save everyone, and it hurts. I’ve never saved everyone. I’ve tried. The only thing I can do is…” She swallowed. “I can try to help everyone by being me. By talking. Doing what I want to do. And I want...I want to be a leader. I want to take charge. I don’t want to help absolutely everyone, because I can’t. Some people will hate me. Some people will still care about me, even if I can’t help them. The world will never be perfect and pacifistic, and neither am I. I’m not a hero. I’m just...a human.”

 

The environment faded away, as Chara grinned widely. “There ya go. That’s more like it. That’s one!” She declared happily, only momentarily pausing, as she looked over at the other two. Papyrus was quiet, confused-looking...but then there was Quill.

 

Quill looked, for lack of better words, fucking terrified.

 

That was because he was.

 

It was like he was back there. Back to the place he’d destroyed, and never wanted to return to. And it was always those bubbles - bubbles, he couldn’t believe that bubbles put him on edge these days, but they did. It was a reflex. But that might’ve been because of the all-too-smug man standing in the middle of the area, a face Quill didn’t want to look at, a person Quill never wanted to speak to again. “Nice to see you again, Peter.” Quill patted at his side for his blaster. Ego groaned. “Is that any way to greet your father?”

 

“You’re not my father. Yondu was.” Quill snarled. Ego chuckled, shaking his head.

 

“Maybe in your eyes, yes. But I’m still your biological father, Peter. I’m still part of you. You’re still part of me.”

 

“I’m not part of you.” Quill responded immediately, fear showing in his eyes. “I’m not anything like you. You’re not a part of me. You’re dead.”

 

“Am I really?” Ego asked, walking towards his son. “Concepts...they’re a different beast. I might not be alive, but you know that I’m still alive where it matters most. And I always will be. You’ll always remember me. Maybe not fondly, but you will. You’ll always know how I was right. How holding onto those mortal bonds..it cost you. Deeply. If you hadn’t held on so hard, we could’ve killed Thanos. You would’ve been able to fight him. You would’ve killed him yourself. But you denied that part of yourself. You denied me. But...sooner or later, you have to accept who you are.” He smiled that faux-warm smile, letting out a chuckle of good humor. “It’s funny, you know! Thanos even used me against you! He knew! He knew how you feared me. How you hated me. And he manipulated that.”

 

“Shut. Up.”

 

“I’m stating facts, Peter.”

 

“SHUT! UP!” Quill screamed, stepping forward. “I don’t care if I have my guns or not, I will--”

 

“What will that change?” Ego asked. “I’ll just come back. You can’t kill something that isn’t alive.” These words alone sent Quill into a spill of silence. Ego looked at him with what could perhaps be interpreted as pity in some way. “...You won’t get out of this unless you accept yourself. You know that.”

 

Perhaps that was the echo of a father that never could’ve been. Quill’s voice came out hollow. “You were right.” Nothing changed. “I was wrong. Connections mean nothing.” Nothing, still. Quill looked around, not seeing anyone again, then screaming. “FRISK?! PAPYRUS?! GAMORA?!”

 

“That’s not it.” Ego said, flatly. “It’s not accepting if someone was right or wrong.”

 

“...” Quill looked at that man, then swallowed. “....You weren’t right. My bonds - my family - means the world to me. All of them do. Even if you’re part of me, even if I’m afraid of you, of being you, of hurting anyone like you did...I’m not you. You’re still there. I know that. But I’m not you. I never will be. That’s what makes things different. I won’t destroy what I have because I’m afraid of losing it. I’ll fight to get it back. And flark, if it doesn’t work now...I’ll keep trying ‘til it does.”

 

A familiar voice let out a chuckle as Quill closed his eyes. It wasn’t Ego. It wasn’t Frisk, or Papyrus, or Gamora.

 

“That’s the way, boy. That’s the way.”

That was when three words escaped Quill, three words he’d never managed to say, in shock. “...I love you.” If he never said it now, he never could again. He knew that, deep down. The voice was quiet, but then came a response.

 

“I ain’t a sucker for that mushy junk. You know that. But...ya did mean the world to me. And you’ll always be my boy. Always.”

 

Frisk stepped back, seeing the fact that Quill had just collapsed into tears. He was back, he looked around, but he couldn’t help it. He was crying. The last one left was Papyrus, and Frisk looked up at him with concern. 

 

And Papyrus merely shrugged, smiling. “I DON’T HEAR ANYTHING. IS SOMETHING SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING, GAMORA?” He asked. Quill picked himself up, wiping his eyes, now raising a brow. 

 

“What do you mean, Pap?” Frisk asked. “...You don’t...see anyone?”

 

“NOPE. JUST YOU ALL. SAME AS USUAL.” Papyrus’s tone was casual. Gamora closed her eyes for a moment despite having a confused expression, and...nodded softly.

 

“You passed the first test. We have to go onwards.”

 

The reply was sharp, prompt, and…

 

_ “YOU’RE DIFFERENT. SO VERY...DIFFERENT.”  _

 

Papyrus winced, for a half-second, when he was sure no one could see...and moved onwards. Whatever was happening to him...they had bigger problems, anyway.


	4. Can You Save The World And Not Yourself?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?  
> What's gonna be left of the world, oh
> 
> Every minute and every hour  
> I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more  
> Every stumble and each misfire  
> I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
> 
> Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers  
> Caught off guard by your favourite song  
> I'll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral  
> Sleeping in the clothes you love  
> It's such a shame we had to see them burn, shame we had to see them burn  
> \- 'Good Grief', Bastille

If the car ride had been quiet, the plane ride must have seemed pin-droppingly silent by comparison. Everyone had seemed to sit apart on the plane - apart from Sans and Flowey, but that was due to necessity, and nothing more. The skeleton had taken a seat near a window, knowing that the flight would be overnight, and at least he’d have something to focus on. Flowey hadn’t complained, and had merely taken to looking out the window as well. It was a while - Sans couldn’t estimate how long, exactly, he’d lost track - but a while before Flowey looked up at him.

 

“It’s almost funny, if you think about it. Humans consider this kind of travel average. To any normal monster, it probably seems like a luxury. Going from so far below ground to above ground…” He looked back out the window. “...So was that whole telescope thing just to scam and mess with people, or have you ever genuinely been passionate about stars?”

 

“huh?”

 

“That telescope.” Flowey looked back up at Sans, his tone seeming at least a bit genuine by the curiosity. “The one that you always had in Waterfall. I knew you had it around to scam suckers and mess with people by doing the whole painted lens bit, but one time you were gone, and I peeked into your room, and you had a star chart there. I’d never seen it before, and I never saw it again, but I was always curious from that point onwards if you liked that stuff more than just joking-wise.” He looked down, before turning his attention once more to the night sky outside. “I knew you’d never tell me if I asked at any point up until now. We’ve never gotten along, and you hate giving anyone a straight answer about anything anyway. But I’d like you to indulge me just this once, if you’d be up to the task.”

 

“i…” Sans paused, but didn’t look at Flowey. “...yeah. it was genuine. i, uh. never really thought about it for a long time. but when i was younger, i used to have books about stars and everything. i knew half the human constellations when i was 9 years old. it always seemed fascinating. we were all stuck below ground, but there was a world above us, and there was even a world above that. and it led to stories. legends. they could explain stars scientifically, sure, but everyone had their own legends. their own little names for each and every star. patterns. shapes. it was all up to interpretation.”

 

“...And it felt infinite, right?” Flowey spoke once more. “Like if you were ever up there...it was full of possibility. Even humans never knew the full extent of what space was. You’d look up at those rocks on the ceiling, and you’d think that one day, you’d be surrounded by that. Little balls of possibility. Of unpredictability. Sometimes, you’d want to be a star. It seemed like it’d be nice, in spirit.  The glowing, the warmth...it was comforting.” Sans looked down at Flowey, and their glance was mutual for a moment. “Is that right?”

 

“that was pretty poetic, coming from you.” Sans replied, a small grin on his face. Flowey frowned, but then Sans replied sincerely. “yeah. that’s...pretty much exactly it. seems like it got to you too.”

 

Flowey was contemplative for a few moments. “When I was younger, my room...my room was covered ceiling to floor with star charts. I had a tiny handheld telescope, even if it was useless, it was fun pretending. One time I saw a picture of a human child’s bedroom, and they had this special decoration lighting on the ceiling that made it actually look like there were stars shining down on them. It was months that I wanted that. I probably was incessant. I remember that I never got it, though. Still sort of makes me huffy even now.” The small, quiet laugh he let out almost seemed fully...genuine. “...One day I did see them for real. At the time, I didn’t even pay attention. It didn’t even register to me that I was living one of my dreams come true. I only sort of realized that now. When Frisk brought me up here again, it felt like the real first time I’d looked and saw that all...infinity before me. It was beautiful.”

 

“....i get to ask you a question now, ok?”

 

Flowey raised a brow, turning back to Sans. “Okay. What?”

 

“are you sure you don’t feel emotions?” That was a question Flowey hadn’t expected, much less in the tone Sans asked it in. “i mean. you’ve gone on and on sometimes about how you feel nothing. we’re all just boring. you’d kill us and it wouldn’t matter to you, but if that were all fully the case, wouldn’t you just...not smile? you’d register everything logically. but you don’t. you smile. you’re smug. a lot.” Flowey snorted, of course he had to get one little jab in there. “you care about frisk. don’t try to deny that. you’ve felt sadness, and that whole thing you just said about stars...i felt something there. so would you still say you don’t have emotions?”

 

Flowey bit his lip, and placed one leaf on the window. “I wouldn’t say I don’t have them. I...back when I was in my RESETting stage of life, I told myself it didn’t matter. The tedium got to me. Even killing people was a bit of a chore, moreso when I went to places and it was just...quiet. I hated people thinking I was some goody two-shoes in my more nicer runs. That was too loud. But killing everyone left me with my thoughts. None of those were pleasant. But after the Underground was practically emptied, I felt like that was sort of what I deserved. 

 

I wouldn’t say my emotions aren’t there. They exist. They’re just...muffled. It’s like if you’re in a room, and you hear music playing in the room next to you. You know what it is, and you know whether you like it or don’t like it, but you can still only sort of hear it, and you can’t go next door to change it. Sometimes it might be something you don’t even listen to much. And if you were picking the genre, it certainly wouldn’t be that one.”

 

“so what’s it like right now?”

 

“Grainy. The radio broadcast is in the middle of a storm. It’s cutting in and out, but when you can hear it, it’s playing a song you heard once a long time ago. It’s on piano. You can still remember it well enough to hum the parts where the radio cuts out, but you don’t know why you’re doing it. It might just be because you like the song.” The plane’s engine filled whatever silence there was. It was the first time Sans had noticed the hum of the engine, the small sounds that meant they were gliding. It’d felt silent before, but somehow it all came into place at that moment. 

 

Flowey himself had only barely considered the situation they were in, honestly, and he was trying to not think about it too hard. He was in a plane with Sans the Skeleton -  the same Sans the Skeleton that he happily called Smiley Trashbag - by choice, though a necessary choice given the circumstances. Still, he had no obligation to talk to him. Neither of them had any obligation to tell the other anything, but there they were, having some kind of weird heart-to-heart about stars and emotional distance and whatever the hell else was going to come up next. It was flat out bizzare. 

 

“....Frisk would’ve loved this, huh?” He asked, a small wry tone to his voice. “You. Me. Having some kind of normal conversation instead of sniping at each other or threats. She would’ve practically busted out party poppers for the occasion. Then again, she tends to do that whenever I’m too friendly to anyone.”

 

“to be fair you’re usually an asshole, but…”

 

“Ha ha ha ha I’m aware.” Flowey replied dryly. Sans snickered. “That’s why I don’t get why she came back for me. I mean, sure. I had a few...moments with her.” The word ‘moments’ came out stitled. Unnatural, like he wasn’t sure what to call what he’d had with Frisk. “But I still tried to kill her. Repeatedly. Everyone tried to kill her, and she just said that was all okay. She’s called me her best friend before, and I only called myself that as a deliberate misnomer.”

 

“she’s different.” Sans admitted. “but that’s not a bad thing. it saved everyone. that’s a plus. it’s naive, yeah. pap’s the same way. the difference is that frisk won’t assume that someone always had the best intentions. she knows what happens, what people mean, but she forgives. she’s capable of really forgetting and forgiving, and not many people are. i know i’m not. that’s why she’s the ambassador. thinking the best of people, but knowing she has to work to get there. she’s not perfect. but she saw in you something that could be changed and i think she’s right. people aren’t beyond second chances. or third. or fourth. just...eventually.”

 

“The way you justify her stupid logic...almost sounds like you’re in love with her or something.” Flowey snorted dismissively. The silence that happened afterwards, however, got his amusement. Sans was dead silent, and Flowey slowly turned towards him, an amused grin on his face getting increasingly wider and wider. “I didn’t hear a denial there, Smiley.” There still wasn’t one, and this caused the flower to cackle. “Is that really the case? You went from ‘raaargh kill you dead where you stand’ to ‘she always means the best and also I want her to smooch my lipless face’?!” 

 

This resulted in Sans’s other hand moving itself to form itself into a middle finger stance, which caused the flower to almost howl with laughter, only deciding to muffle himself at the last second, breathing out with tears in his eyes after he’d collected himself. “This is...really funny. Almost relieving, too. I always thought you might have a thing for Toriel, the way you act like her bestie all the time and use all the puns around her. It was sickening.”

 

Sans shook his head. “first of all, she’s way older than i am. i mean, older women are pretty, don’t get me wrong, but she’s like everyone’s mom.” Flowey nodded, as if to say ‘fair, fair.’ “second of all, do i seem like the sort of guy to do that to asgore?”

 

“To be fair, you’re usually an asshole, but…” Flowey replied smugly, shrugging his leaves. Sans looked at him for a few seconds...and then laughed.

 

“ya got me there.” This simple statement caused Flowey to start laughing as well, and it was the strangest feeling, but it was mutual: this person - this person I hated so much - I’m actually laughing with him. Over something stupid, too. It was something that they’d never have even remotely considered before, and even now it seemed unreal. The whole day had been. 

 

Maybe that was why sleep seemed so restless. Sans was like a rock when he was asleep. Flowey couldn’t estimate when Sans had passed out, but he definitely had, and true to form, he was just as stone-cold asleep as ever, dead to the world. Flowey himself wasn’t a fan of sleeping too much - he’d almost say that he was an insomniac. That might’ve been because when he was at the start of his existence as a flower, nightmares were constant. It made him paranoid. Some were unrealistic, some were pretty close to reality - but the dream he felt himself in when he was asleep this time was far different. 

 

It wasn’t unpleasant. It was a new area of loneliness. Everything was...blue. It felt empty. Like he’d sprouted up in an empty room, surrounded by blue. It was almost hypnotizing, in a way. It was comforting, in a way. Which, honestly, had him more worried than ever. He was aware it was a dream too - lucid dreaming, that was what that was called, so he could control this? Flowey tensed, trying to imagine himself some way to get around easily instead of burrowing in the sand, and yet no matter how much he thought of solutions, nothing appeared. He tried to think of something - anything - this was his dream, couldn’t he control it? Toriel’s pie. The taste was familiar, the shape was familiar, maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he’d--

 

“Are you seriously thinking about mom’s pie right now?”

 

That voice shook him out of any thoughts he had. Alarmed, Flowey took a sharp look around. No one. Nowhere. And yet that voice sounded so close. It sounded like...no. It couldn’t be. It was deluded to think so. Not again. But then again, this was a dream, wasn’t it? If she was here, it wasn’t going to mean anything for the real world...so maybe he could indulge those thoughts. Just like this.

 

“Look. It’s easy to concentrate on. This is a dream, and I need to prove it is.”

 

“Who said it was a dream, Asriel?”

Now that was unnerving. With the sound of a small thump, Flowey looked beside him, and there she was--Chara. The same smile as he’d remembered, the same disposition that made you wonder what she took seriously and what she considered ridiculous, everything he’d looked up to. “I don’t think anyone told you that this was a dream, Azzy.” She stated, rubbing at her nose with her index finger. “And if they did...they might be mistaken.”

 

“Then what is it?” Flowey asked, looking at her with narrowed eyes. He knew. He knew that trusting her entirely was a bad idea - she wasn’t the best person. That was for sure. But he still loved her. No matter who she was, no matter what she did...that would never change. However, it didn’t stop him from knowing that being cautious at a time like this was in his best interest. 

 

“Mmm. I said might.” Chara clarified, not even seeming to change expression. “It still could be! But your best bet is to call this….dreality. Think of it like a very long-distance telephone call, from dearest older sister to her crybaby little brother.”

 

“I’m not--” Flowey huffed. “...Okay, then if that’s the case, why are you calling me?”

 

“Just wanted to chat.” Chara crossed her legs, rocking back and forth in place. “And I guess I should update you on a little bit of news: what you’re about to be getting into isn’t a game. In the words of someone who you know very well...if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to have a bad time.” Her voice came out amused and chirpy even at the comparison to a statement that had formerly been a death threat in her direction. “Do you know the details of this situation?”

 

“Not entirely.” Flowey sighed. “Half of the planet got dusted, and the superheroes are fixing it. We’re going to help, because we know magic, and we can’t just let Frisk remain a pile of dust. Isn’t that all I sort of need to know going into this?”

 

“Idiot.” This, too, was stated cheerfully.

 

“Hey!” 

 

“I’m being honest. Okay. Let me teach you what is actually happening here.” Chara cleared her throat. “Starting off with the basics, you’re right. Half of the world is gone. Half of the world’s resources are, too. This is all thanks to space bullshit. The source is a professional asshole named Thanos. Big. Purple. You’ve heard the name. News reports didn’t say much, did they? Looks like a rancid raisin, talks real pretentious-like, like his murder spree is some kind of grand punishment that he doesn’t want to bestow upon humanity.” She sighed. “Really, if it were me, I wouldn’t be treating it like he’s treating it. At least if I killed half of everything, I’d say ‘yep, I’m an asshole, what do you wanna do about it? Loooooser.’” 

 

Flowey couldn’t help but snicker just a little. “So...how did this guy just dust everyone immediately?”

 

“It’s this little device called an Infinity Gauntlet.” Chara explained. “It’s a big glove where you can put stones in and it gets further charged up the more you go along. Essentially, as long as he’s got that glove on...he’s more in control than you, I, or even Frisk ever has been. Not to mention that to begin with, he had an unusual amount of determination…” She hummed, tapping at her chin. “So what I’m getting at is that this asshole is real real difficult to take down. I can give you little pointers here and there, buuuuut~ I can’t just tell you outright. That’s against dreality rules.” 

 

“Dreality is a stupid name.” Flowey’s comment came out without much malice, but Chara looked at him for an answer anyway. “...Alright. Fine. Give me your help. Whatever this is.”

 

“Excellent!” Chara tossed up her arms dramatically. “Alright, so first tip…this one’s super important. Don’t get too attached to anyone.”

 

It was a tip that oddly stuck out to Flowey. “I don’t. I never do. Why would you even need to tell me that?”

 

“Mmm.” Chara shrugged. “It’s just...important that you know that nothing is safe. No one is safe. If you ever find yourself getting attached to anyone...well. You’ve felt it before. Wanting to be by someone’s side so badly, losing them, feeling nothing but anger. Pain. Agony. It’s worse than you dying yourself. You know that.”

 

“....Fine. I promise you. I won’t.”

 

“...” Chara’s smile turned cryptic, and she shrugged lightly. “Okay. I’ll trust you. Anyway...you’re gonna wake up in a few minutes. How ‘bout you don’t tell the comedian about our little conversation, okay? Not like he’d be liable to believe you, anyway…”

 

“I have one question.” Flowey looked at Chara, a questioning look in his eyes. “I’ve waited for you for ages. For you to tell me something. Give me some kind of sign. Why...why now?”

 

“Who knows? Maybe I’ve just been too lazy to.” The human got up, barely glancing back at her adoptive younger brother. “Or maybe I’ve just now been able to. Reality is crumbling. Some people have more touch with the forces of the universe than you’d think.” 

 

Before he could say anything more, the world went dark. And then he’d opened his eyes up, and it was morning. The plane was still flying, but it seemed like it would land soon. “...Mmm.” He hummed softly. 

 

“that sounded distressed.” Flowey nearly jumped, hearing Sans speak. Honestly, there was no clear-cut way to ever see whether he was asleep, faking he was asleep, or fully awake sometimes...which caused a chuckle from the skeleton. “mornin’, buttercup.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah. Morning.” Flowey yawned. “And I’m not distressed. Well. I am. But not because of anything that happened while I was asleep, unless you pulled some kind of lame childish prank on me and I’m going to have something written on my face.”

 

“.....awwww, crap. i wish i’d thought of that.” Sans snapped his fingers. “but no. not this time.” He snickered. “anyway. we’re gonna be touching down in a few minutes. you ready to enter the wakandian palace? not sure how you are dealing with human royalty…”

 

Flowey snorted. “Please. I’ll be fine. I’m more of a people person than you are. You should be the one worried. The only royalty you’ve ever dealt with is Toriel and Asgore, and both of those are disgraces as rulers.” 

 

“you’ve got the authority to call them out on that?”

 

“Yes.” Flowey’s response was immediate. “And it’s true. One rans from all her problems when she didn’t get her way and kept hiding away like a coward, while the other one chose to ignore the problems instead because he was too much of a softy to make any tough decisions. Neither were qualified as rulers.” His words were firm and his position on the subject seemed unshakable, so Sans wasn’t’ going to bother to object. “Anyway. Do we have any idea who we’re going to be running into, has Stark let onto that?”

 

“let’s see….the princess. who is the current ruling body of wakanda. frisk’s age. apparently an inventor, too. that’s the first one i  remember him mentioning. then there was something about--i think thor is here? so that’s neat. stark told me something like that they had some pretty strange company, but we’d see. not to comment on appearances. which i hardly have any right to do.”

 

“I’ll say.”

 

“first of all, fuck you.”

 

Flowey blinked, then actually chuckled. “It’s weird to hear you swear. You don’t do it half as often as you’d think…it’s almost funny. Good job. That’s an accomplishment.”

 

“hey. hey. hey. i can motherfucking swear whenever i fucking want, you son of a bitch flower.” The expression on Sans’s face of childish amusement was enough to make Flowey actually laugh, and he hated himself for it just a tad. “see? i’m funny.”

 

“Rarely.” Flowey admitted. “Every now and again. And that was more because you looked so pleased with yourself for swearing than anything else. God. You’re like a big 12-year old sometimes, y’know? Even I’m more mature than you.”

 

“...how old actually are you?”

 

Flowey paused. “That’s, uh. Actually a really good question.” He fidgeted lightly, looking down at his leaves as if he were counting on some non-existent fingers. “...Uh. Physically or mentally? Physically I’m probably like. 2. Mentally….21?” 

 

“ah. you’re pap’s age.” Sans remarked. Flowey hummed lightly. “i’m 25, before you ask.” The flower looked at him in mild disbelief, before Sans shrugged as if to say ‘hey, believe what you please.’ This simply resulted in a shake of the head from the flower. “so yeah. i’m 4 years older than you, ya little sprout.” He chuckled.

 

“....Have I mentioned I hate you lately?”

 

“you might’ve contemplated it.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

“thanks.” 

 

“Ah--bw--why thanks, of all things?”

 

“it’s nice to know someone’s thinking about me.” Sans grinned. Flowey slapped his own face with his right leaf, which only seemed to amuse his companion further. “anyway…” He peered out the window. “looks like we’re touching down.” As if on cue, the plane clearly touched the ground, and a few minutes later, Tony had stepped back into the area that Sans and Flowey were in the plane, pointing to the exit.

 

“Good. You’re both awake. We’re, uh. We’re here. This is going to take some explaining as to why you’re here at all, so just let me do the talking.” Flowey looked up at Tony, with a small hum.

 

“They’re going to think you’re insane for agreeing to this, you know.”

 

“It’s nothing they don’t think already.” Tony chuckled, looking down at Flowey. “This is pretty sane, compared to a lot of things. Just unexpected.”

 

“...Y’know, you’re alright, Stark.” Flowey snickered. “Just gotta hope that everyone here feels alright about it. What’s the welcoming party going to be like?”

 

“Probably pretty small. We’re going to have a small group greeting us, and then..they wanted to have a whole team meeting when I got back, so that’s what we’ll do. Hit the ground running, so to speak. And hopefully, with that in mind, we’ll get progress that much faster.” 

 

Flowey nodded, though Sans nodded with a little bit of...hesitation in his eyelights. It wasn’t apparently obvious, at least not so much that Tony or Flowey could point it out, but his first thought was a question that should’ve been asked, but really would be painful if it did: should we really be going into this while we’re all still mourning? So much as he wanted to start the project and get Frisk back...he had to wonder if they were in the right state of mind for any of this. He got up, however, when they’d touched down, and the four exited the plane to see the welcoming party…

 

Which consisted of a rather burly man that Sans could only barely recognize as the God of Thunder mentioned in a few news stories...Thor, along with a tense looking woman who seemed to tense even further at the sight of the three monsters, though Thor greeted them with a friendly smile. “Stark!” He walked forward with a smile. “It’s good that didn’t take too long! We’ve waited for a while...though, um…” He motioned to the monsters, with a small friendly wave at them. “...You brought company?”

 

“We didn’t agree to company.” The tense woman stated, giving them all a look-over, seemingly sizing them up. Flowey almost wanted to pull a face just out of sheer annoyance at the thought, but he held himself back “So I’m supposing you have a good reason for this?”

 

“Right. Yeah. Nice to see you two too.” Tony clearly expected the woman’s reaction, though it seemed like Thor’s presence just naturally put everyone around him into a lighter mood. He was just one of those sort of people, Sans had to guess, a lot like how Papyrus was. It almost made him even more lonely, if he thought about it too much, but he forced the idea down. “...These three represent the monster community on Earth here. Two are scientists, one is the diplomatic leader. Sans--”

 

“hey.” Sans waved a small hand. 

 

“And Alphys--”

 

“Um...hello.” Alphys greeted, adjusting her glasses nervously. She’d been quiet for the most part as things went along - talked briefly with Stark during the flight, but she constantly felt distant. Like she wasn’t completely there again yet. Sans couldn’t help but worry about her in particular.

 

“...These two are the best scientists that the community has, and magic experts to boot. We lost our last magic expert, so I figured we might need new ones, and they’re going through the same situation as us. Flowey--”

 

“Howdy!” Flowey chirped, immediately putting on the typical friendly facade he would with anyone he didn’t trust enough. 

 

“Flowey is their acting diplomatic leader.” 

 

“...Well, gosh, I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but I do what I can…” Flowey swayed lightly from his perch on Sans’s arm. 

 

“Everyone in the world is going through the same situation as us, Tony.” The woman stated flatly, but she almost seemed to relent, if just a tad. “But I guess it’s too late to backpedal on this now. It’s...nice to meet you.”

 

“I am Thor! It’s delightful to meet you all as well!” Thor’s greeting was bright, boisterous, and it seemed to be what the group needed. Sans coughed lightly. 

 

“you got a name too, miss…?”

 

“Rushman.” The woman responded immediately. “Natalie Rushman. I’m a diplomatic envoy. Apologies for the rather...tense introduction. We’re emphasizing secrecy at the moment.” Tony seemed to give Natalie an almost disbelieving stare, to which Natalie didn’t change expression in the least. “At any rate. We need to get going inside. Everyone is waiting.”

 

“Who all is everyone?” Flowey asked, childlike curiosity in his voice. “I mean, as long as we’re allowed to attend the meeting, but we want to help!” His voice came out sing-song, which only made Natalie narrow her eyes a tad. 

 

“...You can join. You’ll see when we get there.” With that, Natalie turned away, and began walking back towards the palace. Flowey resisted the urge to snort dismissively at that reaction. 

 

Though he couldn’t help but let one comment slide. “She seems... _ nice _ .” His tone dragged at the word nice, some of his usual snappiness shining through. Thor chuckled softly, looking down at the two.

 

“She, ah, she takes a little warming up to. Give it time.” He shook his head. “At any rate. It’s delightful to meet you all, as said. I’ve travelled many realms, but you three are rather unique creatures indeed. From Midgard, even! I’d love to hear more of your lives at some point when you have time.”

 

“‘course, big guy.” Sans in particular seemed to warm a bit almost immediately. “we’d love to tell ya.”

 

“Excellent!” Thor seemingly had another thought occur to him, nodding to himself as if whatever thought that came up was a great idea. “It might help a friend of mine to be put at ease as well. He’s had difficulties...being unique. Most rabbits probably do.” With that, he walked ahead as well, leaving Sans bemused, and Flowey sitting in confusion. Alphys still seemed a bit distant, but she at least had a small smile at that.  Tony had already started walking as well, and it was only then when Sans truly examined the environment they were in.

 

The palace was intimidating. It was gorgeous, but it was no doubt a treasure with age. He’d read somewhere at some point that Wakanda hadn’t been a very open nation for very long, but with the times had come change. But everything still showed that it had history to it, and it was almost stunning. If he’d been there for any other reason, he’d want to simply just walk around and...learn. It was comforting in the sense that it felt as though so many had felt comfort in it before. Alphys had hesitantly started to follow the group inside as well, but Sans took his time, taking a small look around - forcing Flowey to do the same by extension. Not that the flower was particularly complaining.

 

Well, complaining  _ much _ .

 

“You know, we’re not on vacation. As much as sightseeing is a fun pastime, we have business to accomplish.”

 

“we can multitask.” Sans shrugged lightly, making sure the rest of the group didn’t entirely escape his field of vision as they walked along. “it’s not every day you get to see the inside of a palace.”

 

“It’s not that great.” Flowey’s response was almost immediate and dismissive. “If you lived here, it’d grind on you fast. It might seem all interesting and regal and proper and lap-of-luxury, but if you were actually seeing that every day...you’d start to get annoyed with it. So you wouldn’t want it to be every day.”

 

“well. yeah. no. i wouldn’t ever wanna live here. you kiddin’?” Sans snickered. “place is huge. do i look like the sorta guy who’d want to walk the triathlon to go get breakfast in the morning?”

 

“I’m glad your reasons are so well-founded.” Flowey rolled his eyes, almost half-smiling in repressed amusement. “What if there were servants to go fetch your dumb food? Then it’d all be okay?”

 

“naaaaaah. have you seen a bathroom sign around here anywhere?”

 

“Oh, you don’t just want to find some sort of sacred lake and use that for everything? They’ve probably got enough.”

 

“look. if you figure out how to pee, we can pee in the sacred lakes.”

 

“You are impossible.”

 

“you’re the one who suggested it!” Sans replied defensively. Flowey nearly laughed, but repressed it to a small giggle.

 

“I said for everything, not for your piss. I meant for like baths and showers and stuff. Now you’re going to get cursed by some ancient spirit for literally pissing off the gods.”

 

“well, that’s everything!” Sans laughed, only barely quieting when he saw Alphys and Tony glancing back at him. He waved their looks off, letting the laugh trail off into snickering as he looked at Flowey. “you’re funny if you try. good job.”

 

“I am? So I’m a good comedian. Good. You can learn from my example.” Flowey replied smugly. 

 

“i never said that!” 

 

“It was implied. Watch your words, Trashbag~” 

 

“Having a good time back there, fellas?” Tony asked. Sans’s usual grin turned a bit more sheepish as Flowey simply shrugged. “Try to act a little more mature during the meeting, alright? You can take the piss out of everything later.” He looked back ahead. “And if it’s literally, that’s on both of you.”

 

The rest of the walk didn’t feel as long, but the doors to the meeting room were as imposing as the monsters felt they might be. They were pushed open, and there were the survivors--with a notable exception. 

 

“Where’s Shuri?”

 

“She went missing.” A bald, intimidating woman that Sans immediately thought could give Undyne a run for her money in the ‘badass with a spear’ category was the first to speak. “She heard T’Challa was gone, and…” The group knew what that meant. “We have the Dora Milaje on the look for her. Her grief…” The woman shook her head. Next, a chiseled, blonde-haired, man spoke - and this time, it was someone Sans could recognize: Captain America.

 

“Okoye is doing her best.” He finished. “We have guests?” Of course, Flowey, Sans, and Alphys were once more the apparent elephants in the room. Flowey, for his part, had gotten tired of the entire idea. 

 

“These are--representatives from the monster kingdom. The one trying to make peace with humans. Two of their best scientists, and one diplomat. Sans, Alphys, and Flowey.” Tony explained, for what had to be the nth time today.

 

“The flower’s name…. is Flowey.” Another voice, deadpan, deep, and sarcastic chimed in, and a single glance would show that it came from one of the other apparent elephants in the room, albeit one who seemed to already have a settled case: a raccoon in a jumpsuit. “Whoever named the poor thing that should be dragged into the street and shot.” 

 

“I….thought of the name myself, actually!” Flowey was immediately caught off-guard by this character, and while he definitely had vitriol inside him, that was being held back by the cheerful facade. 

 

“Oh. Then I still think the same flarking thing.” The entire room was silent as Thor shot an apologetic glance to Flowey, then looked at the other creature.

 

“Apologies. My sweet rabbit friend Rocket here has an original way of getting to know people.” He tried to cover for him, but Flowey’s patience was already being tested. Captain America--Steve--got the conversation back on track, however.

 

“So they’re here to assist us?”

 

“Yes. We need the extra hands.”

 

“I know.” Steve replied, and looked at each of them in turn as if assessing them all immediately at a glance, but then smiling warmly. “Well. We haven’t prepared extra seats, but we can.”

 

“...Are you sure about this?” Natalie, previously quiet, was the one to voice concern again. 

 

“I am.” Steve’s reply was immediate. “Because we only have one shot at this, and a unified party is better than a fractured one. I can tell. We can trust them.”

 

This seemed to be enough for Natalie, and she stood, offering Alphys her seat. Alphys, nervous as she could be, nearly declined, but honestly, she was more scared of what would happen if she said no, so she sat.  The rest sat, though Sans opted to peek over...until Thor got up and physically gently put him into the seat. Flowey snorted, being taken along for that little ride.

 

So, the present company, as Sans could see it, were Tony, Steve, Natalie, Thor, himself, Alphys, Rocket, Okoye, a...blue cybernetic woman, and another man with curly hair who perhaps looked like the most awkward and out of place one there - though Alphys seemed to recognize him, and lit up a little bit at seeing him. 

 

“This is the team we’re working with for now.” Steve stated. “...Sans, Alphys, you two are the scientists?” 

 

“yessir.” Sans responded, though he knew how awkward it probably looked for a skeleton to be a scientist...then again, these people were taking it all in stride. They’d definitely seen stranger.

 

“Y--Yes! I’m the monster kingdom’s former royal scientist, and it’s an honor to be working with you all, so so much...especially you, Dr Banner, I’ve read so many of your papers--!!” Alphys babbled out nervously. Steve smiled at her softly, and she realized what she was doing, and cleared her throat, sitting down. “...sorry.” Banner, for his part, seemed a mix of dumbfounded, honored, and, yes, a little embarrassed, but he smiled at Alphys as well, mouthing to her ‘we’ll talk later!’  The group seemed to generally find that little display almost putting them at ease…

 

Apart from one.

 

Rocket seemed more annoyed than anything, clenching his teeth as he no doubt bit back some particularly harsh remarks as Thor patted his head. But that didn’t escape one from snarling out. “Great. Fun. Remember how everyone is all dead now, or did we forget that? Let’s get back to that, because I, for one, would rather think about tearing that raisin-like piece of SHIT apart instead of the little happy convention we have here.”

 

“The rodent is right.” The blue woman agreed. Alphys sank into her seat. 

 

“Right.” Tony took over. “The intel we’ve gotten on the rest of our group is...yeah. They’re gone. Apart from a few, where we just don’t know where they are.” He hit a button, displaying a picture of a man. “Scott Lang. Ant-Man. Missing.” Swiped the picture. “Missing.” He didn’t say the name for the person on screen, though at the sight of him Natalis seemed to bristle a bit, and simply moved on. The next image was simply a question mark. “Valkyrie. Thor claims--”

 

“A friend of mine.” Thor nodded. “She’ll be coming.”

 

And then swipe to another question mark. “Then there’s this. New York got a sweep-search, someone found this pager.” Tony pulled the pager out, looking at it, before putting it down. This, however, caught Rocket’s attention, and he peered over to look at it. 

 

“...Modification techniques used by the Kree.” Rocket remarked, his usual snap and snarl replaced with something a bit more analytical. “Not quite, though. Improved. It’s…”

 

“Kree?”

 

“...It’s either who knows, maybe good news, or…”

 

“Or?”

 

“This guy decided to really, really fuck us over.” Rocket’s reply was blunt, and he didn’t hesitate. “Better hope your humie friend there was trustworthy, or we’re all going to die. Not that I give a shit. I’m just here ‘cause I’ve got a short lifespan anyway and for a good laugh. Maybe a good fight, too. If we get that far. But…” He shrugged, smiling.  “Either the Kree will kill us, or the big purple fucko will kill us, or, maybe, just maybe, we’ll kill the purple fucko, and THEN we’ll die.”

 

The room, once more, was dead quiet. 

 

“You seem really, really fun at parties.” Sans blinked, looking at the flower on his arm that’d finally decided to speak up. “Instead of thinking we’ll all die, why don’t you help? If you know about these Kree, then do they have weakpoints just in case? Can we reverse-track the signal to see who it might be going to--does the logo there mean anything?” Flowey motioned to the device, his own voice getting snarly. “Do you want to fucking help, or do you want to sit there and bitch?”

 

Rocket stared at the flower. And then he laughed. “Okay. I’ll tell you. The Kree are obnoxiously strong and it took my entire team and I to take down one religious fanatic and his goons. Reverse-tracking the signal might be possible, but it’s also a gigantic red flag going  ‘hey, definitely someone here.’ The logo… I don’t know about the logo. And as for your last question...the second option is sounding more and more fun. I like these new guys. Keep ‘em. They’re so krutacking stupid that it makes me get a good laugh after all.”

 

“That’s...not very n-nice.” Alphys spoke up, surprisingly. “...Y-You don’t know us, we don’t know you, bu-but we’re here to help.”

 

“Bold of you to assume you’re the first one to have told me that, scales.” Rocket’s reply came scathing, and Alphys sank down again. “Everyone at this table has told me that. And you know what? I don’t give a shit. I don’t care about anyone here. I don’t care about anything happening. I. Don’t. Care. All the people I cared about are dead.”

 

“Then we’re in the same boat. That’s no excuse.” Flowey, as usual, was the first to go back.

 

“It isn’t? Fuck you. Fuck you for marching on in here and thinking you have any status here. Fuck you for even trying to argue with me--do you KNOW what it’s like to hear the last words of a dying CHILD be ‘DAD?!’ “ Rocket’s glare pierced directly into Flowey’s eyes. He didn't falter.   
  
“Yes. Yes. I do. I hear that every night of my life.” Flowey, in contrast, had gotten into pure tranquil lury state. “And I’ve heard it for far longer than you have. Don’t you dare assume I haven’t.”

 

“Oh, BULLSHIT--” 

 

“ENOUGH.” Steve was the one to verbally stop the two, and Thor put his arms between Rocket and Sans, effectively splitting them up. The seething lasted for a few more good minutes, before Rocket got up.

 

“I’m going back to my room.”

 

With that, he left. No more words, no more glances at Flowey, just one simple sentence, and the raccoon left. Thor hesitated for a moment, but followed after him after being gently waved off by Steve to go ahead. Sans took a small breath in, and Flowey stared down at the floor, silent. 

 

“i’m sorr--” Steve held up a hand to cut off Sans’s apology.

 

“No need.” The leader, the peacemaker, the guy who did everything right - looked at Flowey s he spoke, knowing that the flower would never apologize on his own. He could see both sides of the argument equally, even if he hadn’t known the flower for but for a few minutes. Still, in that time, he’d seen his expression shift from interest to disbelief to annoyance, and to be entirely honest, he couldn’t blame him. The way Rocket spoke as if this were a lost battle already made some part deep inside of him feel a spark of resolute fury as well - but he was capable of controlling it. That was what most people didn’t see under the surface: he knew the emotional flares just as well as anyone else, it was just that he had the time necessary to train himself to control them. 

 

Time. He was always the man with time on his shoulders.

 

Still, now wasn’t the time for self-reflection. “...I apologize on behalf of our teammate. Rocket...I’m honestly surprised he left his room at all for this meeting. He’s kept himself apart from everyone else since he’d heard of his own losses. So something like this was almost inevitable, though it doesn’t excuse it on either side.” He expected the flower to perhaps huff at that, or snort, or something dismissive, but instead Flowey didn’t move in the slightest. This perhaps caught Sans off-guard as well, judging by how the skeleton’s eyelights blinked from the flower back upwards. 

 

“i’m sorry we intruded.” Sans mumbled quietly. Steve responded to this by extending a hand.

 

“How about we call it even on unnecessary apologies and take a break from this meeting for now?”

 

That perhaps caught Sans off-guard even further, but he chuckled a bit, taking the hand and shaking it. “deal.”

  
  


Flowey was remarkably silent for the rest of the day. Every now and then he might say a single sentence, but nothing more complex than ‘I don’t care.’  On Flowey standards, this was practically being mute, or at least that was what Sans would level out. By the evening, they’d found themselves alone again, and Sans stared at the flower.

 

“What?” Flowey asked in an annoyed tone, looking back at Sans.

 

“nothing. you just seem to be...off.”

 

“Why would I not be off, Sans?” Flowey’s response was annoyed, but nowhere near the anger he’d display at any normal situation. “Frisk is dead. For now. I guess. My only company is the scientist lizard with social anxiety, a bunch of humans with special abilities that think they’re hot shit, that dumb piece of future roadkill, and you. And we know what our relationship is.” It was at least all stated calmly. The walk they’d taken had led them back near a garden - Sans knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep immediately, and Flowey knew the exact same. “I’m basically in a worst-case scenario here. And I’m a substitute diplomat. A diplomat for a species I essentially drove to the brink of extinction in several time loops before you’d always get in my way. So, y’know, if the goody two-shoes brigade hears of any of that...I don’t know what they’d do. But they’re humans that call themselves heroes. I might very well be considered a threat so much as the others they’re facing. Especially after that blowup earlier today. I’m not in an enviable position. Not that I ever really am, but I’d like to think that I’m not so bad off as to worry for my life in the process of trying to save someone else’s.” He let out a very hollow, worn-out sigh. “But I guess if it comes down to it, Frisk’s life is more valuable. If they want me to die...kill me. If they want me gone, abandon me.”

 

“i’m not going t--”

 

“Sans.” Flowey looked pointedly up at the skeleton. “If you were given a choice by some kind of sick, twisted God over whose life you’d save between mine and Frisk’s, you wouldn’t hesitate to choose Frisk over me. And there’s no reason why you wouldn’t, and you telling me ‘oh, I’d spare your life’ is just a flat out lie. Because until about two days ago, we loathed each other. Now we’re putting on this gigantic act like we’re best buddies, but I know that however much ‘friendship’ you feel with me, and however much I could ever possibly feel with you...my emotional states being what they may be, we’d kill each other if it meant saving Frisk. And neither of us would even second-guess that decision.” His voice was simple, like it was simply stating facts at this point.  “And you, being the comedian you are, would know the punch-line to all of that.”

 

“she’d hate us. whoever lived, she’d hate that we didn’t try to weigh scales to save everyone.” Sans responded. Flowey nodded. “...but here’s a different outcome. there possibly could be.” Flowey looked at Sans, his face confused, before he registered what the skeleton was implying.

 

“You’d kill yourself if it meant saving both Frisk and I?” 

 

“i’d kill myself if it meant saving both frisk and  _ anyone _ .”

 

“Pardon my cynicism, but no. No, you wouldn’t.” Flowey shook his head. “Frisk would be angry that you got me killed, certainly, but she’d forgive you with time. She  _ knows _ you. She  _ knows  _ that you’re pragmatic, not selfless. Saint Sans isn’t a person that ever existed, nor will it ever exist. Saint Flowey even less so. I won’t even lie about that bit.” He snorted dismissively. “Anyway, my point is...if the Avengers find out who I am. What I’ve done. If they consider me a threat...don’t stop them. I deserve whatever I get. Alright?” Silence. “... _ Alright? _ ” More silence. Flowey looked up at the skeleton with annoyance, and sure enough - he’d fallen asleep while they were sitting in the middle of a garden. Flowey let out a long, overdramatic sigh, before a new voice chipped into the conversation. 

 

“They won’t kill ya, f-y-i.” 

Flowey looked over towards the source of the voice, only to see...a slightly more disheveled Rocket. “If they tossed people out for bein’ killers or bein’ potential threats, I woulda been outta here immediately. So…don’t worry about that.” 

 

“How long have you been here?”

 

“Since about when you admitted you’re a shitty diplomat. Which you are.”

 

“Well. Thanks for the confirmation on that--”

 

“ _ I’m not finished. _ ” Flowey paused, as Rocket continued. “But you don’t seem like a fully shit person. A huge fuckin’ mess? Definitely. That’s not a bad thing, though. In fact, it makes you one of the best people here.”

 

Flowey’s expression shifted to cautious skepticism. “This all coming from the guy who got into a shouting match with me earlier today.”

 

“Yeeeeeeup.” Rocket nodded, a smile on his face as if that confirmed something to him. “First of all, you’re genuine about being awful. Like, all of these people? Assholes. But they don’t admit it. I was a little cautious at first, but, ah, you don’t back down. That’s respectable. I can respect that. Other people might consider that dangerous, but those people are idiots.” 

 

A small smirk formed on Flowey’s face. “...Really. So if you’ve been here for as long as you’ve said, you heard...my goings-on. How bad’ve you gotten, in terms of morality?”

 

“Mmm. Hunting bounties that have sympathetic motivations more than a few times. Stealing things just because I can and pissing off entire species doing it. Killed more people than I can count, and breaking out of prison is a personal hobby.” Rocket replied, causing Flowey to burst into laughter. “What? What’s funny--?”

 

Flowey shook his head, wiping a tear from one eye. “I honestly expected you to say something like ‘well, nothing as bad as you’ve done’, but you really do wear it on your sleeve, don’t you?”

 

“I told you. We admit to being assholes. Unlike everyone else.”

 

Flowey hummed, then sniffed at the air. “...Is that just because you’re piss-drunk?”

 

“That helps, but no.” Rocket shrugged lightly. “I’m just normally a complete and utter piece of shit that everyone kinda tolerates because I can act like I’m cute or that I care, when I don’t.”

 

Flowey’s already present smirk grew a little. “Ah. So you’re also casually perfectly okay with the human race getting wiped out, like being in charge of things, and have some kind of past that saps would consider ‘tragic’?”

“Humies are stupid and kinda have earned that one, absolutely, and oh yeah, definitely.” Rocket crossed his arms, before Flowey put a leaf over his stem overdramatically.

 

“Be still my metaphorical heart, you are the  _ worst _ . Truce and alliance?” Flowey asked, as Rocket cackled in return.

 

“Truce and alliance!”


End file.
